


This Machine Called Man

by tartanfics



Series: Identification [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Discussion of Hypothetical Cannibalism, Gen, John makes ill-advised decisions, Moral Ambiguity, Mycroft is a bigger creeper, Pre-Slash, Robot Feels, Robots, Series, Sex Bots, Sherlock is a creeper, not a sonic screwdriver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartanfics/pseuds/tartanfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London, 2081. John Watson, former army roboticist, has an expired licence and an illegal tri-wing screwdriver in his desk. Sherlock Holmes has fingerprints and a name, and in an office somewhere in Whitehall there are blueprints for the metal underneath his perfect, artificial skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ishmael](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishmael/gifts).



> Originally written and posted a year ago on the [](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sherlockbbc-fic**](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/) kinkmeme, entitled Identification. This is the first part of the Identification Series and will have two sequels, and if you read the fic on the meme you’re going to want to read this version before you read the sequels (it's been _massively_ edited). Thanks to beta [](http://miss_sabre.livejournal.com/profile)[**miss_sabre**](http://miss_sabre.livejournal.com/) and britpicker [](http://rhuia.livejournal.com/profile)[**rhuia**](http://rhuia.livejournal.com/) , and to co-brainer, enabler, ninja-artist, and beta [](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/profile)[**call-me-ishmael**](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/). Further notes, including abundant thanks, are to be found at the end.
> 
> This fic is complete, and should be updated every couple of days.
> 
> All embedded art was made by [](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/profile)[**call-me-ishmael**](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/), and you can find the [complete art post](http://nothingcomplete.tumblr.com/post/32501732514/thismachinecalledman) on Tumblr. There's also a cover made by moonblossom (for the Canadian edition of the "book," perhaps? :D), which you can find linked at the bottom of the page.

_1\. A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm._

Dead three days. Anderson got it wrong, of course; Molly didn’t. To err is human--Molly may have missed something. No external signs of trauma. Scalpel in.

All the internal organs are where they should be, somewhat changed by death. Sherlock reaches in and feels around the stomach. Liver, pancreas, lungs. Heart. Death changes a lot of things. This corpse is no longer a human being. Dead and gone, rules no longer apply.

Molly says something. Sherlock ignores her. It’s easy to do that, to filter out irrelevant noise.

This case is already solved; getting inside the body himself is not strictly necessary. He hasn’t seen fit to mention that to anyone yet. Bodies are interesting, and unfortunately they have to be dead for him to investigate them. It’s not often he gets a whole one, either. Molly can only be manipulated so far. There’s so much data there, both confirming his conclusions about the case and providing general information.

“May I borrow the spleen?” Sherlock asks Molly.

Her mouth drops open. “What? But-- We have to release him to his family, you can’t--”

“They’re hardly going to notice.”

Ten minutes later Sherlock is hailing an aerotaxi, spleen in a temperature-controlled bag in his pocket. In death, the human being becomes a broken down machine. It’s all just spare parts.

-

John pulls his com out of his desk drawer, barely looking at the tri-wing screwdriver at the bottom of the drawer. Seeing the driver doesn’t give him the shiver of excitement or fear it gives other people, not anymore. The driver is all but useless to him now. It should be back in the hands of the Robotics Regulatory Service. He isn’t sure why he kept it.

It is very, very illegal.

He sets the com on the desk, unfolding it to the maximum view and smoothing out the thin, flexible material. The creases only take about fifteen seconds to fade on this OriCom model; John thumbs his personalised pattern across the touchscreen to unlock it. The surface of his desk is empty, apart from the mug of tea with the Royal Army Robotics Corps insignia printed on the side.

The barrenness of this room is not a result of too long spent in orderly army barracks. If he were still able to work, John’s desk, his kitchen table, and his worktops would be strewn with tools and spare parts, manuals, husks of broken bots and droids. As it is, his textbooks are locked in his army trunk under the bed, and the surfaces of the tiny flat are clear.

John touches the icon for his blog and it expands across the screen. The most recent entry, from a week ago, is still at the top of the page:

“Nothing happens to me.”

-

“John, you’re a soldier and a robotics technician. Adjusting to being a civilian will be difficult. I suggested you write a blog, and I honestly think that will help you. It may allow you to reconnect with old friends, and to get some perspective on your life here. Just write down everything that happens to you.”

He thinks back to his last post.

“I fix robots,” he says. “I’m not a writer.”

“Then branching out will be good for you. Robotics is very specialised work, John, and it’s not a hobby. Your chances of being able to do what you did in the army again may be slim. You need to find something else you enjoy.”

And that’s true, isn’t it. Robotics is not and will never again be a hobby. There are too many regulations, too much history. John cannot tinker, cannot use his robotics skills casually. If John wants to be a robotics technician, he has to do it professionally. He needs a licence, and he can’t get a licence without a job.

He looks at Ella’s hands on her com, and reads the notes she’s typing. _Consider suggestions for blog entries._ What would she do, if she couldn’t be a therapist?

“Are you still having nightmares?” she asks.

John swallows thickly and doesn’t answer, staring into space, trying not to blink. Even without the dark curtain of his eyelids he still sees it, the lingering images of the dream. His fellow soldiers bleeding oil, their broken bones made of titanium. The bots bleeding bright red blood into the sand.

In the dream John is paralyzed, unable to stanch the blood because he isn’t a doctor and doesn’t know what he’s doing, unable to repair the broken robots because his hand shakes too hard to hold the driver.

John is awake, sitting on his therapist’s sofa. His hand still shakes.

-

Sometimes when he goes for walks, putting his stupid psychosomatic limp through its paces, John goes into the British Library to look at the librarian droids. There are more technologically advanced robots, but these are some of the best publicly accessible ones, and John has always liked them.

A droid at the reference desk is running the digits of one hand over a book, scanning it and checking it in. “If I were looking for information on military robotics, what books would you recommend?” John asks it.

The droid turns its blue metal upper body towards him, unblinking, and puts down its book. “Most frequently accessed books, subject: military robotics: The Design, Construction, and Application of Military Androids, author: Michael Holman, ISBN: 468-1-07-938511-0. Army Androids: The Next Generation, author: Sarah Sawyer, ISBN: 520-3-94-172904-6. Rare and noteworthy printed books, subject: military robotics can be found on the fourth floor, section Q, shelves 9-14. E-books, subject: military robotics can be accessed via indexing at BritishLibrary.hub.com.”

“Thanks,” John says. He looks around at the other droids behind the reference desk and then asks, “How do you like being a librarian droid?”

“I am Librarian Droid 93PF8. I was built for the collection, organisation, preservation, and dissemination of information resources.”

John has always liked asking robots personal questions, knowing such questions confuse them. It’s about the only fun he gets, these days.

-

Sometimes John finds himself visiting old haunts, masochistically reminding himself of a time when London was his favourite place in the world. When being there, walking familiar streets and stopping by familiar buildings, felt right. One afternoon in January John finds himself in the street in front of the London School of Robotics, his leg hurting, his breath a little short. He wants to sit down more than he wants to avoid seeing how out of place he’ll feel in the LSR, almost twenty years on, and he remembers a bench in the foyer of the main building that’s probably still there.

The bench isn’t still there, replaced by a sad-looking potted ficus, but once inside the building John can’t quite bring himself to just leave again. The LSR is in some ways just as John remembers it--the brick buildings, the lino floors, the bright white walls. John has no doubt its entire contents have changed, though. The display in the echoing foyer makes that obvious--a surgical robot in a glass case with a plaque, like it’s in a museum. John remembers that robot, had worked on it once. It had been the most technically advanced robot he’d ever seen.

John wanders around looking at the other display cases, his cane tapping loudly on the floor. One has the lifelike Japanese true-humanoid android, Actroid-F, which looks like a large, creepy, nearly-human doll. John sees a robot he recognises as an older version of the reconnaissance bots the army uses.

There’s a reception desk that wasn’t there in John’s day, next to the large double doors to the rest of the building. John wanders over to talk to the man sitting behind it, curious. The receptionist is painfully young, probably an undergraduate--John barely remembers being that young.

“May I scan your ID, please?”

John frowns. “What? I was a student here twenty years ago, I don’t--”

“I’m sorry,” the kid says, “you’ll need a current student, faculty, or staff identification code on your com if you want to get past the lobby. Or a registered guest code, if you’re a visitor.”

This is new. Back when John was at uni tri-wing screwdrivers weren’t even registered. Now you need an ID code to get in the door?

“I was just passing, wanted to see if this place still looked the same,” John says. “All this is a bit different from my day.”

“Good afternoon, Billy,” a deep voice says from behind John.

John turns, and finds himself looking at the lapels of a dark grey coat and a man’s broad shoulders. He’s standing a little too far into John’s personal space. John looks up at him.

He is pale and dark-haired and too tall, and he has amazing eyes, and he smells wrong. He smells cold and faintly metallic, and also, disconcertingly, like dry-cleaning. Maybe he’s spent too much time in the robotics lab, and that’s why he smells like a robot. But that doesn’t explain why his clothes still smell like cleaning products. There’s something unidentifiably strange about the man, something that almost reminds John of the slight wrongness in the unnatural flawlessness of the Actroid-F across the room, the Uncanny Valley of not-quite-human.

He’s holding a halfway unfolded com in one hand, sliding his finger across the fingerprint lock. The wrongness can’t be because he _is_ a robot, of course. It’s illegal to give a robot fingerprints. John makes himself stop sniffing the man.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” the stranger says, opening screens on his com without looking up.

“Sorry?” John asks.

“Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Afghanistan. How did you--?”

He folds up the com and slides it into a pocket, and strides off across the room toward the case with the reconnaissance bot, saying as he goes, “How do you feel about high-functioning artificial intelligence?”

“It’s terrifying,” John says, deadpan, following him across the room.

“But you like it.” He leans on the display case and peers in at the bot, apparently ignoring John while still carrying on a conversation with him. He doesn’t seem to notice John’s sarcasm.

“Yes,” John says, because he does. He’s always thought AI could have so much potential to achieve good things, despite its dangers.

“You’re unemployed,” the man says, out of nowhere.

“How--?”

“I need a consultant. It’s a matter of some delicacy, but I’ve been looking for a roboticist I can trust to do the job.”

“I don’t even know you. We don’t know anything about each other, why would you think I’d be able to do the job?”

The man turns to John finally, and John is suddenly the focus of his attention in a way that is impossible to escape. “I know you're a robotics technician--you told Billy as much--and you were in the army. You've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’re not employed--you wouldn’t be wandering into your former university and looking longingly at obsolete robots if you were--so you’re surviving on an army pension. You don’t have a robotics licence. The fact that you’re carrying a tri-wing screwdriver concealed at the back of your trousers makes that quite clear.”

John steps back, feeling his body shift into controlled tension. _Oh god_.

“It’s dangerous, walking into the London School of Robotics with an illegal screwdriver on your person, and your experience in the RARC also suggests you’re accustomed to danger. Prior to the moment you realised I knew you were carrying a tri-wing screwdriver illegally, you were exhibiting a tremor in your left hand--could be nerve damage, but the fact that it stopped suggests that its cessation was a response to the danger of the situation. Your hand shakes when you feel perfectly safe, and stops when you’re threatened? You’re at your best when in danger. That’s a valuable quality. You have nothing better to do, you need money, and you need danger. Perhaps we may be able to come to a business agreement.”

“The driver?” John hisses, hoping Billy can’t hear them. “Aren’t you going to do something about the driver?”

“That’s just one of those law things. Not important. I’ve engaged a flat in central London. We’ll meet there tomorrow, seven o’clock. Sorry, I have an appointment at the mortuary.”

 _Mortuary?_ “You haven’t told me your name. You don’t even know my name.”

“The name’s Sherlock Holmes, John Watson.”

John is left gaping, staring as Sherlock Holmes turns and walks away. “Is that it?” he says, but Mr. Holmes makes no indication that he’s heard. John watches the swing of the front door as it closes. He is absolutely terrified and he feels better than he has in months.

John’s com pings a message notification. He pulls the com out of his back pocket and unfolds it once, just far enough to read the text.

**13:52 29.1.2081 Textual Information Transfer from Sender: Sherlock Holmes. Message Follows...**

**The address is 221B Baker Street.**

Not only does Sherlock Holmes know about John’s illegal driver, he knows John’s com address. The driver, sure, if he were extremely sharp-eyed maybe he could see it, pressed cool against John’s back. It’s stupid to carry it, John knows, completely irrational. It’s backwards to feel safer carrying something that puts him at enormous risk.

But that is, strangely, not the issue. The issue is that Sherlock Holmes knows John’s com address, knows his _name_ , and John has no idea how he got it.

John walks slowly across the foyer and steps out the doors, stopping on the front steps and looking up at the dull grey January sky. Thinking back on that profoundly strange conversation, John realises that for all the excellent reasons to never go near Sherlock Holmes again, he doesn’t actually have anything to lose. And going to the meeting might do something to cure John’s interminable, desperate boredom.

Mr. Holmes was right. John’s hand is perfectly steady.

-

John is blankly calm, hands certain, shoulders relaxed. He sets the device down on his desk and leans back, fingers curling tight around the arms of his chair. He wasn’t sure that would work, but it seems to have. There’s no safe way to test it, though, not here.

Had John known he’d be using his robotics degree for this... Only there’s not a lot of difference between a remote robot disabling device and the directed-energy guns the army uses.

He doesn’t question why he’s doing this, what he’s planning, if he’s planning anything. He picks up the gun. It has a familiar weight to it now, a familiar warmth. He flips the safety off. Flips it on again. Still functional as an RRDD, but now with boosted power and minor adjustments, it can do more.

John sets the gun back down on the desk and admires its blue casing. He is, dimly, horrified at himself. He sweeps the litter of discarded scraps into one pile and his tools into another. He gets up, picks up the gun, and crosses the room. Kneeling stiffly, he hauls his army trunk out from under his bed, pulls the keys out of his pocket, unlocks it. His hand lingers on the gun as he sets it into the side compartment of the trunk. Finally he pulls away, relocks the trunk, stands up.

The keys clatter against the floor. John looks down at his left hand and finds it trembling; he missed his pocket.

Without a lethal weapon in his hand John can’t even put his keys away without dropping them.

-

Sherlock is already looking through the LSR’s student database when he overhears John Watson tell Billy that he used to be a student. It’s only a matter of seconds to also register the man’s military bearing and the presence of a tri-wing screwdriver tucked at his back. From his approximate age, subsequent military career, and presumed area of study, Sherlock quickly narrows the search down to those finishing their degrees in 2065, and finds the man in question: John Hamish Watson, born 31.3.2042, went into the Royal Army Robotics Corps, com address: JHW.164.17.394.1.

It isn’t difficult to find further information about John Watson. For a robotics technician who should know better, John Watson (John, use of the given name will establish trust) is appallingly easy to locate. His name is all over the net, given some judicious search terms: public profile, messages, dating hub, uninformative blog.

Sherlock is lying on the sofa, sorting through the net’s combined knowledge on John, when he hears John knock on the front door and Mrs. Hudson answer. He’s already been through the information once, trying to find anything that will suggest the most effective approach to this matter, but a second search brings out different aspects.

John Watson should be boring, ordinary. He shouldn’t provide any kind of new data. Yet Sherlock has never before encountered a person who is in all respects completely dull except for one minor detail that blows all the information out of normality and into the realm of mystery.

Tri-wing screwdrivers are expensive, extremely difficult to fake, heavily secured, and _never_ , in Sherlock’s experience, carried illegally by otherwise statistically ordinary men.

It’s almost enough to outweigh the numerous problems with finding a suitable robotics technician to do the job. John is clearly unphased by a certain amount of breaking the law (sensible of him; laws are frequently unnecessary and tedious). He is not, however, a criminal, and that is what makes him interesting.

John’s footsteps on the stairs (uneven, loud), Mrs. Hudson’s voice (cheerful), and then they enter the room and Sherlock is presented with a more comprehensive set of data: John wearing a checked shirt, all the way buttoned; he looks tidy and normal, and when he turns to thank Mrs. Hudson Sherlock can tell from the way he moves that his driver is once again tucked into the back of his jeans. Not put off by the first encounter, then: he showed up, and he brought his driver with him.

“There he is,” Mrs. Hudson says. “Sherlock, you’ve got a young man here to see you.” “Young” is an imprecise and subjective term, obviously, but John is 38, which is not quite middle age--a somewhat less imprecise term--but hardly young. Sherlock lifts a finger, in the recognised gesture for “one moment”, and then presses his palms back together against his chin. He has on previous occasions noted the advantage of making people wait.

Mrs. Hudson conducts John into the kitchen, chattering about the building and her hip and the scones she’s made for tea. By the time Sherlock is satisfied with the conclusions he’s made and the length of John’s wait, Mrs. Hudson has gone downstairs to make a cup of tea while John sits in an armchair, watching him. Sherlock files away John’s information and sits up.

“Can I borrow your com?” Sherlocks asks. “Don’t want to use mine, always a chance the address will be recognized.”

John clears his throat. “You--you hacked my com yesterday, didn’t you? You must have done.”

“Don’t be stupid, John. When would I have had time to hack your com? I got your name and address from the LSR’s student database.”

“People don’t lend their coms to strangers. They’ve got sensitive information on them.”

Ridiculous. Nothing a good hacker couldn’t retrieve, if it were worthwhile. “I doubt any of your information is very sensitive. The army would hardly have given you classified information.”

“My bank account--”

“You’re living on an army pension; there’s nothing in your bank account.”

John stares for a moment and then takes a very deep breath. The motion is one Sherlock has often observed, especially in those making decisions, deciding to lie, trying not to become angry--it’s supposed to be calming, observation suggests. He watches John deliberate, and then, wordless, take his com out of his jacket pocket, unfold it to the maximum view, and scan his fingerprint to unlock it. He gets up to bring it across to Sherlock, and he doesn’t hesitate before he hands it over.

Internally, Sherlock declares this a victory. The fact that John trusts Sherlock with his com is an excellent sign that Sherlock has chosen well. Coms are intimately connected to personal identification, and because of the fingerprint scanning required to use them they are difficult to steal and use. It’s a sign of something--trust, stupidity, recklessness, Sherlock finds it frustratingly impossible to identify precisely--and it’s that unquantifiable quality which prompts Sherlock to make his decision.

“Maintenance would be fairly simple, except in cases of accidents,” Sherlock says. “Accidents happen at an average of one every five weeks. I am not as careful as is normal. It is inefficient to be careful. Repairs are always possible.”

John’s entire body goes still, as though he knows, on some level, that Sherlock is about to reveal a dangerous secret. “Maintenance? What are you talking about?” John looks around the flat, as though searching for a robot to which Sherlock might be referring.

“I am a true-humanoid autonomous android. I need a maintenance technician.”

John’s facial expression is a perfect match for Sherlock’s catalogued expression of shock. “You--you what? You can’t be. It isn’t possible.”

“Of course it’s possible. You know it is. You see, but you do not observe, John. Really look.”

And John does. It’s not that Sherlock is obviously a robot. It is by no means obvious. Sherlock’s design is so careful, so meticulous, so perfectly humanoid, that the signs are minor details, tiny slightly wrong things that are only noticeable to those who know where to look.

No one ever knows where to look.

Sherlock waits for his cue, the inevitable reaction that will spread across John’s face. He cannot predict what it will be. The unpredictability of the situation is uncomfortable; it is outside of Sherlock’s preferred lines of inquiry not to know how one action will lead to another. The situation is profoundly and unpleasantly human.

Finally, the change in John’s expression: the realisation. When the expression finishes loading Sherlock devotes all his resources to categorising it and comes up with a near perfect fit, and one that is better than Sherlock could have expected.

John’s face is a picture of wonder.

No fear (but John is a robotics technician; he should be long past any fear he might have felt about robots), not even any worry. John takes a breath and says, voice steady, “But you borrowed my com. You have your own com. You have fingerprints.”

“I never claimed to be a legal android,” Sherlock snaps.

“So, you... You haven’t broken _all_ the laws, have you? The Three Laws?”

Humans are so preoccupied with the Three Laws of Robotics--ridiculous, as their concise, pretty ways of stating them are imprecise approximations of the actual Laws. In all practical applications the Laws are expressed in code, with accompanying limits and specifications.

“No, John, I have not and cannot break the Three Laws.”

John’s face expresses relief. “What about the RLT? How many of the robot limitation tests do you pass?”

“I have never been assessed by the RLT.”

“So you could...” John takes a deep breath. “You might pass more than three of the tests. You might count as sentient.”

“Once again, I never claimed to be legal.” In fact Sherlock _would_ pass more than the maximum allowed three out of nine tests that determine a robot’s level of intelligence and human-like qualities. Sentience, of course, is an imprecise term, implying no difference between human and robot. Sherlock is clearly different, and he cannot pass all of the tests. It doesn’t matter. The Robot and Artificial Intelligence Limitations Act of 2046 is just another law, an arbitrary product of human fear-mongering.

“So I have my illegal driver and you have your illegal everything, and if one of us goes down we both do?”

Sherlock doesn’t get to answer before Mrs. Hudson steps back into the living room, balancing a cup of tea. “Here’s your cuppa, dear,” she says to John. “Sherlock, did you want any?”

Sherlock sees the way John’s eyes snap towards him, looking for the reaction a robot might have to the offer of a drink. “No, thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

“Well, you enjoy your tea, Dr. Watson. Just bring the cup down when you’re done, and remember, you’re only getting it because you’re still a guest. I’m your landlady, not your housekeeper.”

“Thank you,” John says politely, warming his hands on the surface of the cup. Mrs. Hudson pats him on the shoulder and retreats downstairs to her own flat.

Sherlock smiles because he knows John is finding it disconcerting to see such human facial expressions on a droid. “Mrs. Hudson doesn’t know, of course. No one knows.”

“So why did you tell me?”

“I need a maintenance technician.”

Sherlock recognises scepticism on John’s face. No shock, interesting. “You want me to be your tech? I can’t do your maintenance. I don’t know a thing about you, your technology. I assume you don’t care that I don’t have a licence, since you’re illegal anyway, but I don’t even know your numerical designation.”

“I don’t have a numerical designation. I have a name.”

“Robots don’t have names,” John says. Hardly an accurate statement. People give them nicknames all the time, ridiculous as that is.

“I do.” John’s objections are ridiculous. They’ve already established that Sherlock is not a normal, legal, boring android. He should stop expecting Sherlock to conform to all the standardised laws and regulations; it’s irrational.

John accepts this, at least, with minimal resistance. “And what happened to your last maintenance technician, anyway?”

“I found him unsatisfactory.”

“Robots don’t sack their own maintenance techs,” John says, laughing. Sherlock detects nervousness in his laughter.

“I am built for efficiency. He was inefficient. And he wasn’t allowing me to function at my full capacity.”

“You think I’ll be more efficient.” The cup of tea in John’s hands tilts, four degrees away from spilling into the saucer.

“I think you’ll be more interesting.”

John frowns. “And what is your primary function?”

“I am an adaptive analysis and deduction droid,” Sherlock says.

“So, you... do what, exactly?”

“I am a detective. Mrs. Hudson is providing housing at a lowered rate because I solved a small problem for her. A court in Florida sentenced her husband to death.”

“You stopped her husband being executed?” The tea tilts further, and then snaps back upright.

“Certainly not. My function is to ascertain the facts. The facts ensured his execution.” It was the first case he took of his own accord, and as such he is still partial to it. The case file has been accessed more frequently than most of Sherlock’s other files.

John blinks. His face is... unreadable. Sherlock’s catalogue of facial expressions is missing this one. Unacceptable. Sherlock takes a photograph of the expression and stores it in his file. Corresponding emotion: unknown.

“You said ‘lowered rate.’ How are you paying for this? Surely you aren’t paid to fulfill your primary function.”

“It’s not a ‘primary function,’ as far as most people know. I am occasionally paid for cases.”

John stands, still holding his cup of tea. “Look, what am I getting involved in here? You’re an illegal droid, you got rid of your last maintenance tech, your technology is... _amazing_. I--I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

Sherlock also stands, stepping across the room and leaning into John’s space. He’s found this intimidates people, but he’s also discovered that his design was calculated to be very physically attractive, and his aesthetic superiority likewise gives him an advantage. He wants John to accept. Having a new maintenance tech, a different one, one who won’t try to push him into taking easy cases and letting his processing capacity go to waste... the possibilities are too endless to compute, and so _interesting_.

“I can also offer housing,” Sherlock adds, having seen a mention on John’s blog of his terrible flat and hoping this will add incentive. It will also allow him to keep John under observation, to see whether John can continue to be trusted and whether he might be allowed to perform more extensive maintenance. “There’s another bedroom upstairs.”

Sherlock pauses, looking at John, calculating the last step necessary to get John to agree. “You are a robotics technician with no licence and no prospects of getting work; you cannot survive in London on an army pension. You are a soldier who misses the war. Become my maintenance technician and my flatmate and all your current problems will be solved.”

“You think I miss the war?”

“Living with a robot--could be dangerous. Accept the offer, John. ”

And _that_ facial expression is in Sherlock’s catalogue. Eagerness. Excitement. Desire. Hope.

“Oh God, yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

The fingerprints, the colour of the eyes, the dampness of saliva on his lower lip when he speaks--as a robotics tech, John has a healthy appreciation for artifice, but this goes beyond that. The human form, so often the subject of art, has been artificially recreated so perfectly that all artifice has disappeared and left only art. Sherlock is almost too perfect, but not in the usual android way; he has the slightly alien look of an impossibly beautiful model, on the other side of the Uncanny Valley of repulsion that a not-quite-human android causes in humans.

It’s hard to believe. John stands there in the living room of 221B Baker Street, staring up at Sherlock, at the _android_ , and he doesn’t believe it. Not in a real, physical, certain way. Oh, intellectually he believes it, recognises the slightly too unblemished, too pale skin, the very slightly unnatural way Sherlock moves, knows that individually these things are common features of robots, but somehow the whole, the sum of the parts, says human. So it’s almost impossible for John to make himself really feel like he’s speaking to--standing mere inches from--a robot. 

In the army, John had worked on two kinds of robots. One kind were the dog-sized, bug-like bots, in two or three variations. These were used for bomb detection and disposal and for reconnaissance. They were relatively simple, easily built and maintained robots, and working with them had always been like having a slightly dim-witted dog.

The second kind of robot used by the army was the team of field medic androids. They were anthromorph, rather than true-humanoid, though they were painted to look like real soldiers in uniform so that from a distance the enemy wouldn’t know to target them. Up close they looked rather like large metal dolls with crude faces. They were extremely efficient as medics and harder to permanently incapacitate than a human, which was why the army used them, but soldiers, lying injured and delirious in the field, had been known to scream and push the droid away, refuse treatment. Something about a robot was not reassuring to people in pain. That was part of why robot techs had field training, so that they could accompany a medic droid on important missions, soothe injured soldiers, and sedate them so that the robots could do the real work.

It was always a strange partnership, the bot techs and medic droids. Not like working with a human--they didn’t make conversation, they couldn’t do much outside of their medical functions--but they were still a presence. In the workroom with a couple of medic droids you weren’t alone. 

The difference between a droid and a bot is that one is shaped like a human and the other isn’t. The difference between an army medic droid and Sherlock? Incomparable. 

With twenty years of taking robots apart and putting them back together, and a whole childhood before that in the early days of commonplace robotics of dismantling toasters, John wants to open Sherlock up and see how he works. It’s an instinct, an unavoidable feeling that makes John’s fingers itch, but in this case it also feels wrong. It feels like wanting to break apart another human being, to spread his ribs and watch his heart beat and his lungs inflate. But of course Sherlock doesn’t have lungs, doesn’t have a heart. John _could_ open him up.

He could. That chance, the possibility of seeing, and mending, and _touching_ a piece of technology that has transcended technology and become art, that’s what made John say yes to this.

He hopes not to regret it.

Sherlock spins away from John suddenly, out of his personal space and back towards the sofa, and pulls his com out from between the cushions. “It’s synced with my system,” he tells John. “Unnecessary to have to listen for a noise.” Turning back to the com, he folds it open and asks, “Where?” clearly answering a vidcall. 

And that’s another way Sherlock is not a normal robot. Not only does he have a com, a device restricted to humans, but he is evidently missing the programming that dictates how robots answer calls. Usually robots that need to make audio calls do so internally, without a com, stating their numerical designation to tell the person on the other end of the call that they are speaking with a robot and to signal nearby people that the robot is making a call. Sherlock’s style of telecommunications is wholly human.

“Brixton, Lauriston Gardens,” says the face on the screen that John can’t see.

“And? Something is different.”

“There’s something... wrong, with her flat. Will you come?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock thumbs the X that must be hovering over the face’s left eyebrow, and picks up the com. “Excellent. Four serial suicides and now new data. Oh, I love new data.”

“Serial suicides?” John asks.

“You read the news, you know what I’m talking about. Four apparent suicides, no connection--yet.” 

John remembers that now, though it hadn’t made a particularly deep impression at the time. Three people--a Scottish businessman on holiday, a posh 18-year-old kid, and an MP the night of her birthday party--all committed suicide using the same poison. John had thought, after the third death, that there must be more to the story.

Sherlock has his overly dramatic coat on and is out the door before John quite knows what’s happened, leaving him with a hurried, “Have a seat, John, have another cup of tea, make yourself at home. Don’t wait up!”

John looks around the flat, wondering again whether this is all a truly terrible idea. He leans against his cane and wanders over to pick up a broken ID card that’s lying on the floor by the armchair. Despite being broken, it’s the new model that’s supposed to fix some problems connecting with coms, new enough that John’s never seen one. The side that usually contains personal information is blank. He turns it over and admires the swoop of silver lines decorating the back. 

“You’ll need to know what normal function looks like.”

John whirls around, to see Sherlock standing in the doorway, looking thoughtful. John has never seen a droid look thoughtful before. “What?”

“For proper maintenance, a technician needs to know how a droid is supposed to function. Basic robotics school knowledge, John. You need to see how I operate correctly in order to fix it if something goes wrong.”

“That’s true,” John says warily.

“Come along, then.”

“Where are we going?”

“Crime scene. You’re a soldier; it’s nothing you’ve never seen before. Injuries, violent deaths, the human equivalent of operation failure. This is what, I do, John, this is my primary function. You’ll be useless to me if you never see it.”

John follows him out the door, thinking, _how can a robot be so damn convincing?_

Sherlock has an aerotaxi waiting, six inches off the pavement. He pushes John into it and follows, giving the address to the driver. John always feels a bit sorry for taxi drivers. The union managed to hold off the initial push for roboticising public transport, but the idea keeps being batted around and it can’t be comfortable to worry all the time that you might one day be replaced by a robot.

“So you’re a detective,” John says once they’re seated and the taxi is lifting into the air to hover for a moment ten feet above the roof of their flat. He looks out the window and notices with surprise that there’s an aerobus stop on the roof. Why didn’t they go up there to get a taxi? As the taxi rises further the lift at the back of the building becomes visible, a glass and steel compartment leading up to where two somewhat windblown people are waiting for the bus. The taxi turns a little shakily and then glides off over the building, towards Marylebone Road. 

“That is my function.”

“And who was that on the com?”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade,” Sherlock answers.

“You help the police?” 

“When necessary.”

“Christ, I didn’t know they had that kind of funding,” John mutters. The _military_ doesn’t have the kind of funding needed to build Sherlock, and military robots have been in development the longest.

“They don’t.”

“You’re a private detective, then? Some eccentric philanthropist thought the Met needed a bit of help?”

Sherlock snorts. “Eccentric philanthropist is an entertaining, if not accurate, description. No, my intended function is detective work but I was not intended to aid the Metropolitan Police.”

“Then--”

“Not relevant, John.”

“Fine. Give me a preview, then.”

“A preview?”

“You wanted me to see how you operate. Tell me how you knew I was in Afghanistan.”

Sherlock looks down at the private vehicles stuck in traffic on the roadway, and then back at John. “Your haircut, your bearing--confirmed evidence of military background. However, your comments to Billy proved LSR training. Therefore, army robotics technician. Afghanistan or Iraq? Exposure to ultraviolet radiation evident on your face, but not above your wrists. You’ve been in a sunny climate, but you weren’t there for the sun. The tremor in your left hand and your limp are psychosomatic, therefore the circumstances of the real injury were traumatic. Traumatic injury, ultraviolet burn--Afghanistan or Iraq.”

John is mesmerised. Sherlock makes it sound so simple, and of course for him it is. It’s what he does, what he was built to do. “What else can you tell me about myself?” John asks.

Sherlock looks surprised, which is an odd look on a robot, even one who doesn’t really look like a robot. “You recently upgraded your com--it’s a newer model, release date July 8th, Japanese, manufactured by OriCom, which is largely recognised as the leader in com technologies. Not the brand commonly used by the military, though, and not generally favoured by roboticists, who tend to prefer the independent companies--more customisation options, less proprietary software. Expensive, too, and we know you’re living on an army pension, so likely this model was not your choice. Therefore, a gift.”

All true. John would have chosen a com from Omnitools or WellCom, and his was a gift. He barely even sees the city passing beneath them; the force of Sherlock’s attention is simply too consuming.

“You’ve been in Afghanistan and living alone since you returned, so not a gift from a spouse or partner. A com is personal, especially one that previously belonged to another person--it’s impossible to completely erase all the data when changing ownership. A gift from a family member, then. Could be a parent or sibling, but the background photo is obviously not of friends of yours--though it is of people your age--which suggests it was put there by the previous owner and you never bothered to change it, and that the previous owner was in fact your sibling. Your sister, to be precise--she’s the one in the red shirt, obviously. She’s holding a drink, clearly alcoholic, and there are scuff marks around the power input on your com. She regularly plugged it in while her hands were shaking--classic sign of an alcoholic, a valuable piece of data. You and your sister don’t get on, probably because of the alcoholism, but she gave you her old com as an attempt at reconciliation.”

John, feeling blindsided, takes his com out of its pocket and looks it over. There are scratches. He hadn’t really noticed. He looks up at Sherlock and blurts, “That was amazing.” 

“ _That_ is what I’m built for.”

“No, really. That’s extraordinary. You did that so fast--much faster than you could do if you were just pulling information out of a database. You’re a learning android, aren’t you? You’ve collected all that information, you’ve learned how to do that. That’s quite extraordinary.” John’s never encountered an android with the ability to learn the way Sherlock does. Advanced adaptive learning is one of the nine human traits robot limitations testing checks for, but it’s not a commonly passed one.

“That’s not the usual reaction.”

“What’s the usual reaction?”

“The verbal reaction recorded with highest frequency? ‘Piss off.’”

John grins.

-

“I need input, John,” Sherlock says as they step the six inches down to the ground from the aerotaxi. Sherlock swipes his fingertip across the screen of his com to unlock it so that he can authorise payment. “Tell me whether I got anything wrong.” 

“Harry and me don’t get on, never have, and Harry is a drinker.”

Sherlock puts his com back into his pocket, walking off down the road. “Excellent, my processes are showing improvement. I’m not always right about everything.”

John smiles, pleased to pop Sherlock’s bubble--though why he should be pleased, given Sherlock is a robot and can’t possibly be _disappointed_ , he doesn’t know. “Harry’s not my sister.”

Sherlock stops short, and turns stiffly to look back at John. “Cousin?” he suggests. “No, not your cousin. Ah. There is always some uncertainty in my gender assessment processes; it’s one of the most difficult of human characteristics to be 100% accurate about. It’s been a source of inconvenience before.”

“You’re not the only one to assume Harry’s a woman, anyway.”

“I don’t assume,” Sherlock protests. “I made an informed choice about how to read the photograph based on statistical probability.”

“Yeah, well, it amounts to an assumption all the same, doesn’t it? It’s a bit nice to know you get things wrong sometimes, actually.”

“Yes, fine, now give me the data.”

John laughs. It’s already far more fun to tease Sherlock than it ever was to tease the library droids--Sherlock doesn’t get confused. He actually seems to get rather impatient. “Harry’s recognised nonbinary. The papers had just gone through when I got home on my last leave; I had to drag Harry home from the celebration after they were too drunk to remember what it was about. But we haven’t called Harry ‘she’ since they were eleven.”

John still remembers sitting on his bedroom floor with his back against the bed, just after he turned thirteen and was given his own com for the first time. Twelve-year-old Harry sat next to him, passing John’s com back and forth to play a game, while it rained outside and downstairs in the kitchen their parents had an argument about something. John can’t remember what, may have chosen not to remember. It isn’t something you do, sharing a com, except with people you’re close to, people you trust. John and Harry aren’t really close anymore but sometimes, like the day John went to visit Harry with a hole in his shoulder and a crack in the screen of his com, they pretend that they are close, that they still trust each other.

It’s the drinking and the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the fact that Harry resents robots for being the most common example of a person without a recognisable gender.

John is about to ask Sherlock why _he_ is so blatantly gendered, when he is interrupted by a woman calling from behind the police tape, “Hello, freak.” Freak? John hangs back as Sherlock greets her, and considers for a moment what Sherlock would look like if John didn’t know he was a robot. Insane, probably. A mad genius with an obsession with crime.

John, distracted by this contemplation, doesn’t listen to the conversation until he hears his own name and realises that Sherlock is introducing him. “John Watson, Sergeant Sally Donovan. Old friend.” Friend? Is that a joke? Do robots make jokes?

“A colleague? How do you get a colleague?” Is that what Sherlock introduced him as? He supposes it’s sort of accurate, insofar as a robotics technician works with robots.

John, military-trained to respect the lines of jurisdiction, is a bit nervous about this. Surely it’s against all kinds of rules to have random civilians at a crime scene. They don’t even have a good excuse, aside from the vague suggestion of “colleague”. John doesn’t know anything about detective work or dead bodies. “Would it be better if I waited out here?”

“No,” Sherlock says. John wonders if that’s an objective analysis of the situation, if Sherlock has tallied things up and determined that it’s worth more to have John see him in action than to placate Sergeant Donovan.

Donovan announces Sherlock’s presence over her com’s radio mode, and lets them through the police tape.

“Hello, Anderson,” Sherlock says to a man in a blue anti-contaminant suit, who frowns.

“It’s a crime scene. You’d better not contaminate, or move, or steal any evidence.”

“Yes, thank you, I recognise a crime scene when I see one. The blue and white tape was a clear signal.” He pauses, and John can practically see him processing. “I could, however, ask you to do the same.”

Anderson looks less surprised than irritated. “What are you talking about?”

“Sergeant Donovan’s lipstick.”

“What?”

“It’s on your mouth. Kissing at a crime scene, Anderson? You’d better not try anything more likely to leave stray evidence.”

“No, it isn’t,” Donovan says, looking at Anderson’s face. “I only wear permanent lipstick. It shouldn’t come off for hours.”

“I didn’t say I could _see_ it on Anderson.” He sniffs delicately, and John takes a moment to marvel at the detail of his design, that somebody bothered to connect the action of sniffing to his olfactory sensors. Did they heighten his sense of smell, too? John certainly can’t smell lipstick. “I can smell it. Excuse me.”

“Whatever you’re trying to imply--”

“I never make implications. I don’t care what you do at work, since your work is hardly valuable to me. I’m simply suggesting that you keep the crime scene _clean_.”

John winces as Sherlock brushes past Anderson and Donovan, and follows, fascinated. That particular incident was certainly outside the definitions of Sherlock’s primary function--whatever intra-office affairs police officers might choose to have with each other, it isn’t a crime--yet Sherlock did it anyway. Almost as if he enjoyed using his systems of observation and extrapolation. But robots don’t _enjoy_ things.

“What was that for?” John mutters to him as they step inside a large Victorian house that at some point must have been gutted and turned into several small flats. “You didn’t need to embarrass them. You even looked like you were having fun.”

“You exercise your body. I exercise my systems. Anderson is useless to me, so there’s no harm in getting my exercise by antagonising him.”

“He’s still a person. So is Sally,” John points out, knowing even as he says it that it’s useless to expect respect for someone’s emotions from a robot. He would probably say it’s inefficient. Anderson’s humanity: irrelevant data. Sherlock is clearly not listening anyway.

“Wear this,” Sherlock says, handing John a folded blue forensic suit. His fingers catch on the slightly gummy anti-contaminant coating over the material. He unfolds it, and then looks up at Sherlock.

“Aren’t you going to put one on?”

Sherlock stares at him for a moment. “I’m hardly going to contaminate the scene with my own DNA samples, am I?,” he says, as though John should have known that. He probably should have.

“Who’s this?” John hears, and turns to see a grey-haired slightly haggard-looking man glancing between him and Sherlock. John recognises him, vaguely, from the news.

“John Watson,” Sherlock answers promptly.

“But who is he?”

“He’s with me. Now tell me what I’m doing here.”

“Upstairs. I can give you two minutes.”

“Two minutes may be insufficient.”

The man John assumes is Detective Inspector Lestrade leads the way upstairs. The bright white gel lights hover eight feet above the floor, casting the stairwell into vivid and unflattering clarity. The cream-coloured walls would probably look nice under the soft yellow light from the wall fixtures, but in bright light they look just look pale and grubby. John stumps up the stairs behind the other two, still feeling thoroughly out of place.

“Her name is Rachel Walton, according to the ID card in her com,” Lestrade says. “We haven’t been able to get hold of the landlady yet, so we don’t know if it’s really her flat.”

The door to the flat, painted green, is standing open. In the entryway two more people in blue forensics suits are talking in low voices, next to a short square table on which an empty glass vase sits. Lestrade leads Sherlock and John in past the two policemen. It’s a tight squeeze; the entry isn’t very big, and the vase wobbles as they bump against it.

“You said there was something wrong with the flat,” Sherlock says to the back of Lestrade’s head.

“You’ll see,” Lestrade mutters, walks through into the kitchen, and steps aside. Sherlock stops in the doorway, and John is left to peer, on tiptoe, over his shoulder.

At first, John doesn’t see what they’re talking about. It’s an ordinary kitchen, definitely cleaner than Sherlock’s, but not really interesting. Then, as Sherlock shifts sideways and John gets a better look, he realises it doesn’t look like an ordinary kitchen at all.

It looks like a photo of a kitchen, an estate agent’s carefully styled advertisement--too clean, too carefully arranged, not lived in.

“Let me see the body,” Sherlock demands. “I won’t theorise ahead of the facts.”

Wordlessly, Lestrade leads the way through the kitchen and into a bedroom. This too, looks like a photo, but a photo that’s been made to look slightly more authentic. There’s a box of tissues on the bedside table, a pair of pink high-heeled shoes kicked off against the wall.

John’s first sight of the dead woman is... cold. Familiar. It’s not his first dead body, of course, and it gives him the same feeling of helplessness he got from the last ones. He’s used to being able to fix things--it’s what he does. A robot is never truly dead. Robots can be repaired, even with dead system boards, even with blown out power sources, it’s always possible to order new parts. If a robot is too destroyed to bother fixing it can be dismantled for parts, melted down, recycled. Robots are replaceable. People aren’t.

It’s confuses his understanding of robots a little to realise he isn’t sure whether _Sherlock_ is replaceable.

-

Sherlock stalks around the body. So much data, it’s glorious. He wants to focus on it, but his scanners are highly sensitive. Lestrade’s brain activity is _loud_. “Shut up,” he snaps.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking. It’s distracting and unnecessary.”

Sherlock kneels, examining the body. Biologically female, blonde hair, age: approximately 36. Pink dress, translucent nylon stockings. The shade of pink of the dress and shoes is too bright; Sherlock’s visual receptors process that colour within a certain range of wavelengths that they assign to advertising, city buses, and distress signals. The association with advertising suggests possible professions (obviously professional, not blue collar--dresses of this style associated with professionals): television, publishing, marketing. Category: media.

Her com lies on the floor near her left hand (sinistromanuality), the screen cracked and the display frozen. The display shows a com address text box--Rachel Walton was in the process of making a call when she died. The only letters of the com address visible are DAW.----26.38---. A combination of the crack in the screen and several dead pixels makes the rest of the address unreadable.

Condition of body. Hair: disordered. Dress made of wrinkle-resistant synthetic material in a style popular among those who find the false flawlessness of robotics design aesthetically pleasing, a style most common among humans ten years younger than Rachel Walton. Interesting. Minor surgical adjustments in the face, also to reduce irregularities. Wearing earrings and a necklace, but no ring, despite the line of pale skin around her left digitus annuláris. Probable significance of such a ring in that location: marriage. Divorced, just moved into this flat? But no boxes, barely any personal possessions at all. So this isn’t her flat. Or she took the ring off and it’s hidden somewhere.

“She was poisoned?” Sherlock asks. Obvious, of course, but confirmation is necessary.

“Anderson thinks so.”

“That does not give me confidence in my knowledge about the cause of death. Make sure Molly Hooper does the autopsy; she’ll catch anything he missed.” Sherlock sniffs at her mouth. “Of course, she was in fact poisoned, but I’d like confirmation from someone who is both not an idiot and in possession of a medical degree.”

Sherlock picks up her com, examining the crack, turning it over to look at the other side. He slides off the cover over the card slot and examines the cash and ID cards. Rachel Walton. Date of birth: 23.2.2045, London. Sex: F. Pronoun: she. The cash card is anonymous, the kind sold in corner stores and newsagents’; there is no bank card. Sherlock slides the ID out of its slot and is surprised by how easily it moves. Most ID cards are rarely removed from their owners’ coms; removing them is an inevitable struggle. The police may have already removed it earlier, but no. It slides _too_ easily for that. The card has been regularly removed.

The only reason to regularly remove an ID from a com is to switch it out for another. Rachel Walton is not this woman’s only identity.

“Got anything?” Lestrade asks.

“Not much.” Sherlock doesn’t see the necessity of relating his deductions to Lestrade--he’ll solve the case himself, after all, and Lestrade doesn’t need to see the process to benefit from the results. It might be worthwhile to explain himself to John, though. 

“What do you think, John?” Sherlock asks.

“Sorry, what about?”

“You have an advanced degree in robotics. You’re familiar with technology of all kinds. Is her com repairable?”

“I’m breaking every rule letting _you_ touch the evidence,” Lestrade says, glancing nervously at John. Oh, honestly. Lestrade is a policeman, he should be over any qualms about dealing with roboticists.

“Yes, because you are incapable of reproducing my methods, and you need my methods.”

“I do need you. God help me.”

Sherlock waits him out, aware that the statistical likelihood of Lestrade caving to any of his requests is very high.

“Oh, do as he says,” Lestrade tells John, and turns to step out of the room and talk to Anderson.

John watches him leave and then turns back to Sherlock. “He really doesn’t know,” John murmurs. 

“Who doesn’t know what?”

“Lestrade doesn’t know you’re a droid. But he likes you.”

Sherlock stares for a moment, processing that information. Like, verb: find agreeable, enjoyable, or satisfactory. Well, people find it satisfactory when Sherlock’s work is to their benefit, but that doesn’t seem to be quite John’s meaning. He files the data for later assessment.

“What am I doing here?” John asks, when Sherlock makes no answer to his thoughts on Lestrade.

“Observing my function.”

“Why do you want to know if the com is repairable?”

“I don’t. I want to know how it broke.”

John makes a small noise (Sherlock’s audio processors suggest a meaning: understanding), and Sherlock slides the ID card back into its slot, replaces the cover. He turns the com over, and hands it to John, who nearly drops it. John runs his thumbs along the crack in the screen. “It wasn’t dropped,” he announces.

“No?”

John shakes his head. “I did a bit of tech support for my mates in the army--faster just to have me fix their coms than send them off to the company. I saw a few dropped ones, but dropping them doesn’t have this effect. It just shakes them up a bit. It wouldn’t crack like this.”

Sherlock takes this information and prods at it. Not broken. Unlikely to be broken by Ms. Walton, given she was in the middle of attempting to make a call. Not dropped or intentionally broken by the user, therefore: broken by an as-yet-unidentified third party. “Stepped on?” Sherlock suggests.

“Could be,” John answers. “You think it was--?”

“As a point of interest,” Sherlock says, “could you repair that?”

John looks back down at the com. “I reckon so, yeah. It’s probably just the screen that’s broken. If you hooked it up to another com you might be able to get the files off.”

“Excellent. Lestrade!” He swings around and looks out into the hallway. Lestrade steps back into the room. His face reads as inquiring. “Any word on whose flat this is?”

“Yeah, just in. It was her flat.”

“Rachel Walton’s?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock’s eyes scan the room, evaluating the appearance of the body, the minimal furnishings and general lack of personal belongings. “It can’t be her flat. She coordinated her lipstick and her shoes, she would never have left her flat looking like this.”

“Maybe she doesn’t really live here?” John suggests. “Just kept a second flat for some reason--business or something.” John puts more emphasis on the word “business” than seems warranted, but Sherlock doesn’t have the time to process it. 

“Her name’s not Rachel Walton,” Sherlock announces. “Under her real name she is in a professional occupation; the shade of pink suggests something in the media. She was married, but not happily; she had a lover.”

“Lover? Oh, for God’s sake, if you’re just making this up... Explain, please.”

Sherlock is about to refuse--unnecessary, inefficient--but he looks at John and remembers he’s supposed to be demonstrating his methods. “Her ID card has been regularly removed--there’s no common reason to do that, which suggests that she removed it in order to swap it for another ID. How do I know Rachel Walton is the fake name and not the real one? Because she wears a wedding ring; the tan line is clearly visible. She isn’t wearing it now, and if you’d found it somewhere in the flat you would have told me, unless you’re more stupid than I think you are, and my evaluation of stupidity is never wrong. Far more likely that she would be using a fake ID when meeting her lover than when meeting her spouse. Also, I know a fake ID when I see one, even a very good fake ID such as this.”

“That’s brilliant,” John murmurs. Brilliant? It’s his function; he doesn’t understand how it is “brilliant” to do what he’s been programmed to do. Unless John is complimenting his programmer?

“So she was renting this flat to meet her lover in, and that’s why there’s nothing in it?” Lestrade asks. “We’ll need to know her real name.”

“The real name may not be relevant. The important question is why she felt the need to buy an expensive false identification card just for a lover. People have lovers all the time; it doesn’t warrant a whole new name.”

“Sherlock,” John says. His voice sounds strained, why does it sound strained? “Of course we need to know her real name. She was married. Somebody has to notify her spouse.”

“What for?”

“She’s dead, Sherlock. If it were me I’d want to know my wife was dead.” 

Oh, John’s identifying with the victim and her spouse now, how tedious. “She was cheating on her spouse; they’re probably glad to be rid of the problem.”

“No, Sherlock, her spouse will want to know.” John speaks slowly, the way people seem to do when they think the person they’re addressing is stupid. John knows Sherlock isn’t stupid, why is he doing that? “That’s... a bit not good, Sherlock. Her real name is not irrelevant.”

Why should Sherlock put effort into finding out her real name just to notify the spouse she was cheating on, when he could be solving this case and stopping a serial murderer? It isn’t logical. Apparently there’s no avoiding it, though. Is John going to become an inconvenience? Or perhaps it will be useful, having a human around to interpret ridiculous human things. “Fine, I’ll work out what her other identity is.”

Sherlock evaluates what he knows of John and John’s technical abilities. The man is obviously competent, obviously not averse to breaking the law if he can be convinced it is necessary. Gaining access to evidence is always a problem, with the tight hold the police have on it and their reluctance to share. So, the best course of action: gain control of the evidence.

“What have you done with her overnight bag?” Sherlock asks, moving away from the body, away from Lestrade, and towards John, who is still holding the broken com.

“Bag? What does she need a bag for, if it’s her flat?”

“Have you even looked in the closet?” Sherlock demands. “She doesn’t live here; she brought a bag. Where is it?”

“There isn’t a bag,” Lestrade says. “How do you know she had one? I want a proper explanation before I send everyone off looking for a bag that doesn’t exist.”

Well, that bit of explanation Sherlock really doesn’t understand. It’s obvious, surely. “What is it like in your funny little brains?” he asks. It’s a constant sort of curiosity for him--there’s no way to replicate the experience of being inside a human mind. Sherlock supposes it is something like having his most useful processors shut down, which sounds utterly boring. But there may be something he’s missed, some quality to the human mind that is unquantifiable in a way a droid can’t quite understand. He answers the question. 

“There’s a specific type of bag favoured by women who dress in this style,” Sherlock says, gesturing to the dead woman’s clothes. “Large--big enough to be used for an overnight bag, small enough to pass for a purse. Designed to resemble the internal structure of an android--romanticised, of course, none of it works, and little of it is made of the actual materials--regulations wouldn’t allow for that. A ridiculous fashion, but useful nonetheless.” As he speaks, Sherlock speeds his way through a database of Droidwear merchandise, looking for a style that matches the evidence. Oh, of course. “Only one such bag is manufactured in pink, and the colour is strikingly similar to that of Rachel Walton’s shoes and dress. The bag in question has a raised metal rectangle on one side, and on the opposite side a row of screws. She was left-handed, would have worn a bag over her right shoulder, which is obviously the case judging from the crease in her dress corresponding to the metal panel on the bag and the row of minor bruises on the inside of her arm where it would have pressed against the screws on the bag.”

“That’s fantastic,” John says again. Strange. A nervous tic? 

“Do you know you do that out loud?” Sherlock asks.

“Sorry, I’ll shut up.”

“No, it’s fine.” Interesting, even. New data. Possible subject for experimentation? 

“What if she drove, left her bag in the car?” Lestrade suggests.

“No, she obviously doesn’t drive. If the bag is not in the flat the murderer has it.”

“Hang on, murderer? You think she was murdered?”

“Of course she was murdered--they were all murdered. I don’t know how--it was clearly suicide; the signs are unmistakable. They all chewed and swallowed the poison of their own accord. But there was someone else here, and they took her bag. It can’t have been a theft, these people aren’t connected; this is obviously the work of a serial killer, not a thief. So it was an accident. The killer made a mistake. They forgot the bag in the car--they drove her here.” Sherlock’s processing speed is faster than ever, and the data is beautiful, a perfect progression.

“You said she came from work--she could have left her bag there,” John says.

Sherlock analyzes it instantly. “An overnight bag would be dangerous to leave at work. Too much chance it would be found and reveal that she was meeting a lover. No, the murderer has, or had it. Come on Lestrade, find the bag!”

Lestrade is unresponsive for a moment, looking between Sherlock and the corpse, obviously coming to a decision Sherlock already knows is a foregone conclusion. Lestrade can’t pass up a lead. 

“All right!” Lestrade shouts, turning and leaving the room, moving through the kitchen and out to where the rest of the police are milling around. “We’re looking for a bag, meant to look like a robot.”

The moment Lestrade is out of the room, Sherlock turns to John and takes the com out of his hands, folding it halfway and shoving it into his coat pocket. 

“Sherlock!” John hisses. “What are you doing?”

“Come on,” Sherlock says, grabbing John by the wrist and leading him out of the room, out of the flat, through a cluster of police officers in the hallway. “Find the bag!” he shouts at them. “The bag has to be important.”

It’s probably irrelevant, actually, but Sherlock has the evidence he needs.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock lets go of John when they reach the stairs, and clatters down them much faster than John can manage. “Come along, John!” he calls. His voice echoes in the stairwell. John nods awkwardly to the confused-looking police officers and slowly thumps down the stairs after him. He finds Sherlock waiting for him on the front step, standing very still but clearly working, processing information, planning his next step.

“What the hell are we doing?” John asks him, keeping his voice low so as not to be heard by Sergeant Donovan and the others standing not far away.

“You’re waiting here,” Sherlock answers. “There’s nothing to observe in what I’m going to do next, and you’d slow me down.” John glances down at his leg, his hand on his cane, and takes a breath, looking back up at Sherlock.

“What are you going to do next?”

“Find the bag, obviously.”

“You know where it is?”

“Yes. It’s probably not important, but I want to find it first, stall Lestrade and his people while we have a chance to get back to Baker Street and get on with the important things. I’ll send you a text when I’ve found it, and you can meet me.” He strides off down the street, ducking gracefully under the police tape, before John has a chance to argue. John hovers awkwardly next to the front door as two policemen pass him on their way inside, and then he steps away and walks out onto the pavement, feeling slower than usual, more conscious of his limp.

Sergeant Donovan is leaning against one of the police cars, talking to a uniformed police constable. She says something and the constable walks away toward the main road. She turns to look in John’s direction. John nods politely and then, for lack of anything else to do, he ambles over to talk to her. It might be interesting to see Sherlock the way most people see him, and she clearly has an opinion on him, has known him far longer than John.

“He took off, did he?” she asks.

“More or less.”

“Yeah, he does that.” 

“What else does he do?”

Donovan shrugs. “Hang around crime scenes. He’s not paid to be here or anything. He gets off on it. The weirder the crime--the more complicated--the more he gets off.”

Sherlock doesn’t need to be paid, of course--solving crime is his primary function, his _purpose_. He was built for it. But here again is the suggestion that he _enjoys_ it. The more John sees, the less he’s sure that isn’t the case. “How long has he been around?” John asks.

“Five years, I think? Since before my time--I was in the technological crimes division until three years ago.”

“Technological crimes? What did you specialise in?”

“Nothing, really. I was a constable, then. I’m not trained in any tech, I just fell into it and picked things up along the way.” She pushes herself off the side of the car and turns to look at John straight on. “Look, what are you still doing here? Waiting for him? You’re not his friend. He doesn’t have friends.”

John half smiles. “I know he doesn’t.”

“So who are you?”

“I’m...” It’s a good question. John is Sherlock’s maintenance technician, but he doesn’t think that’s exactly what Sergeant Donovan means, and he’s not about to tell her. He is nothing to Sherlock, emotionally speaking. Droids don’t have emotions. “I’m nobody.”

“Okay, bit of advice, then? Stay away from that guy.”

She doesn’t know Sherlock is a droid, so she can’t know he’s illegal. Does she think John is going to get hurt physically? Sherlock has already said the First Law is in his programming. As Sherlock’s maintenance tech John can make sure that’s true. “Why?” he asks.

“You know how I said he gets off on it?” she begins, and then something catches her eye and she half turns, looking up. John follows her gaze and sees, caught in pale moonlight, Sherlock, standing on the roof. He looks unreal, strange, inhuman--but more like an animal than like a machine. “One day it won’t be enough,” John hears Donovan say. He doesn’t look away from Sherlock. “One day we’ll be standing ‘round a body, and Sherlock Holmes will be the one that put it there.”

That does get John’s attention. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s a psychopath.”

It’s interesting, to know that this is what happens when a robot looks like a human. John knows Sherlock is not a psychopath, but at the same time it’s strange to think he’s agreed to live with a robot who looks to outside eyes like someone who might someday commit a murder.

John’s com pings. He looks away from Donovan, clears his throat awkwardly, and pulls the com out of his pocket. 

**Tunstall Road. Come at once.**

“Is that him?” Donovan asks.

John nods, feeling half guilty for... something.

“Be careful,” she says. “You wouldn’t want to wind up accessory to a murder. Or the victim.” She walks over to lift up the police tape, and he ducks under it and turns back to smile at her. 

“Thanks for the warning.” 

Donovan gives him a look, like she thinks he’s crazy, and walks away. Maybe he is crazy.

He spots Sherlock leaning against the wall of a brick building on Tunstall Road, half in shadows.

“Find it?” John asks.

Sherlock steps aside and gestures at the large bag at his feet. It is vividly pink, with exactly the same robotic metal bits stuck on the sides as Sherlock described. “Jesus, we’d look conspicuous taking that anywhere in public,” John says.

“Exactly.”

“What?”

Sherlock steps out of the shadows to hail a cab, leaving John to pick up the bag and follow. The aerotaxi driver gives him a look when he dumps the bag on the seat, but John only shrugs and smiles sheepishly.

“No one could go anywhere with that bag without attracting attention,” Sherlock says as the taxi lifts into the air. “You’ve just proven that. So the killer could only have forgotten about the bag if it were in the car. It can’t have taken them long to realise the mistake, though. I simply checked every place in a five minute radius of Lauriston Gardens where one could dispose of such a conspicuous object.”

“Right, okay. So you found the bag. Now what? Where are we going?”

“221B Baker Street,” he tells the driver.

-

The living room of 221B Baker Street is warm and bright. It’s a bit sparse--nothing on the shelves by the fireplace, no pictures on the walls, barely any clutter except on the table. Everything is in its place. That’s not going to last if John moves in. He’s always had trouble keeping his belongings in order, at least when he has any belongings to speak of. He’s rather charmed by the cow skull on the wall that’s had its horns replaced by skinny metal robot arms, and a bit creeped out by the human skull on the mantelpiece. The Union Jack pillow in the armchair must be Mrs. Hudson’s touch. All in all the flat is orderly more in the line of a minimalist than a robot.

It’s not the kind of place John would have expected a droid to live, had he thought about it. Not that John would want to live in the kind of place he would have pictured for a robot. Not that he’s sure he wants to live _here_ , just yet. He has said yes, but he’s not beyond the point of no return. 

He sinks down into the armchair and watches Sherlock set the bag on the table. “Sergeant Donovan’s going to think you’re the murderer,” John says calmly.

Sherlock pauses halfway through unzipping the bag and turns. “What? Why?”

“She thinks you’re a psychopath.”

Sherlock snorts derisively. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Well, no. But didn’t anyone think you might benefit from a politeness subroutine? It’s not like it can’t be done; most service droids are almost painfully polite.”

“Politeness is inefficient.” Sherlock unzips the bag and dumps it upside down on the table. John watches as Rachel Walton’s possessions tumble out--tubes of bright pink perma-lipstick and black perma-eyeliner, a travel-sized electric toothbrush, a concentrated food bar (strawberry flavour), a hairbrush. No clothing, but then everything she was wearing was robo-chic style, so it was probably all self-cleaning. None of it looks important to John; he’s not sure why Sherlock went to the trouble.

Sherlock dumps the bag itself down on top of the contents and turns away, placing his hands on his hips. “Long shot,” he mutters. “Had to eliminate all the possibilities.”

“So the bag isn’t relevant?”

“No.”

“What about fingerprints?” John asks, getting up to examine the bag himself. He’s careful not to touch it more than necessary.

“Not on that surface.” Sherlock throws himself down on the sofa and presses his palms together under his chin. It’s the same position he was in when Mrs. Hudson first let John into the flat. It looks like some kind of standby mode, slightly blank. John watches Sherlock, distracted. 

“So are you going to tell me what you stole the com for?” John asks. He’s not exactly comfortable with the idea, stealing evidence out from under the noses of a dozen police officers. He has what is probably a stupid amount of faith in the idea that Sherlock knows what he’s doing, though, that this is part of a plan or will in some way increase the efficiency of the investigation and lead to a serial killer being stopped.

That doesn’t stop this from feeling like a very, very stupid idea. John chooses not to think about it too hard.

“So you can get the files off it, obviously,” Sherlock says.

Oh, obviously. John stares at him. “You know I’m not actually a com tech. I mean, I can do that, but don’t you think the police have people better trained for it?”

“If I let the police do it I won’t get to see the evidence.” Sherlock unbuttons his left shirt cuff and then reaches out to the coffee table to pick up a thin black metal rectangle. He flicks a catch on his wristwatch (John barely has time to wonder at a robot wearing a wristwatch before he realises Sherlock uses it as a port) and slides the object into a slot beneath the watch face. 

“What are you doing?” John asks. Sherlock doesn’t open his eyes, pressing another button on the watch by feel. Well, he probably has sensors. 

“Extra processing power.”

“How much?”

“Three zettabytes.”

“Three? Christ, Sherlock, you’ll overload your system.”

“It improves my processing speed.”

“Yeah, and if you’re not careful it’ll improve your processing speed a little too much. You’ll fry your system.”

“You’ll fix me,” Sherlock says, and replaces his hands under his chin. 

John watches him, expecting a minor explosion every moment, and then eventually gives up and looks around the room. “So, you want me to get the files off?”

“Yes. It’s in my coat pocket.”

Sherlock’s coat is hanging on the back of the door, where he hung it when they came inside. John reaches into the left pocket and pulls out the broken com. It is only half folded; John unfolds it all the way and sets it on the table by the windows. “All right,” he says to Sherlock. “Let me have your com.”

“What for?”

“I’m pulling files off a private com that was stolen evidence from a murder investigation, Sherlock, I’m not putting the files on my own com.”

“Fine. Jacket pocket.”

Seriously? John’s never known a robot this lazy and unhelpful. It’s... actually a bit of a relief. He crosses the room, cane thumping loudly on the floorboards, and reaches between Sherlock’s elbows to pull his com out of his inner jacket pocket. “You’ll need to unlock it,” John points out, unfolding it.

Then he looks down at the com, and realises he’s seeing the last of the fingerprint unlocking screen fade away. Sherlock unlocked it remotely. 

“You can... Half the point of the fingerprint lock is that it means robots can’t use coms.”

“I have fingerprints,” Sherlock points out.

“Yeah, about that--”

“So I can transmit my fingerprint key remotely. It’s hardly impossible, John, you simply have never thought to do it because your brain is not a computer.”

John decides not to argue. 

He finds a com-to-com cable lying in a tangle on the table, and sits down with it and Sherlock’s com to figure out the best way to do this. It shouldn’t be hard--he’d been good at retrieving files off broken coms in the army. Com screens are crack-resistant, but they take a serious beating in a combat zone. The issue here is to be as careful as possible not to lose anything, not to miss the one file that might be the key.

John connects the coms, and starts trying to get into the admin account that will let him override the fingerprint lock and copy the files.

-

It’s interesting, that John Watson is so willing to cooperate with pulling the files off the com Sherlock stole from police evidence. Stealing it was a choice based on the probability that John would help--73% likely, but by no means a certainty. Sherlock has identified several reasons why John might have agreed, though Sherlock is aware that more than one of those possibilities may apply. It’s one of the more irritating features of humanity, their tendency to have several reasons to do any one thing and not to know fully what all those reasons are or to give them their deserved weight.

The first possible reason is that John is so addicted to adrenaline that he’s willing to do illegal things (within certain limits) in order not to be bored. Several things Sherlock has observed about John point to this likelihood: the tremor in his hand which disappears when he’s threatened, his former career in the army, his possession of an illegal tri-wing screwdriver. This is likely part of the cause for John’s cooperation. 

John may also believe that Sherlock intends to blackmail him with his driver if he does not help. This is effective in the short term but does not seem conducive to a functional future relationship. Sherlock would prefer that John be his maintenance technician of his own will. Coercion would be undesirable in a number of ways, though Sherlock has yet to identify all of them.

There is a chance that John is hacking Rachel Walton’s com out of a basic desire to help Sherlock. Why he should want to do so is less clear. Sherlock can’t afford to rule it out, however. 

The question of John in combination with the problems of the case justify the extra processing power. Sherlock, lying on the sofa, turns off some of his unnecessary systems in order to devote more space to dealing with the two issues. He watches John, who sits at the table working in a small space cleared of discarded machine parts and useless print-outs. He clearly knows what he’s doing. His fingers dance over the screen of Sherlock’s com. His face is calm and focused, except at the point where he seems to hit a problem, when he swears and glares at the com. But the problem is overcome soon enough. It is fascinating to watch John work, solve problems, do something he’s good at. 

Forty-two minutes and eight seconds after he begins John sits back in his chair, expelling a “Hah!” which Sherlock identifies as triumph. He waits for John to speak.

“I’m in,” John says, turning to Sherlock. His hand is perfectly steady and there’s a brightness to his eyes, an upturn to his lips that he is trying and failing to control. John is clearly not doing this because he feels he must. He is enjoying it. That’s good. 

“What are we looking for, exactly?” John asks, when Sherlock doesn’t immediately respond.

Sherlock dismisses his analysis of John’s motives and focuses on the case, getting up and crossing to look down over John’s shoulder at his com. They’re looking at the default screen of the dead woman’s com, a macro image of smooth metal of the type used in some anthromorph service droids, with a night sky behind it.

“Anything related to her true identity, and anything that might tell us who she was meeting at her flat.” Sherlock shoves at John’s shoulder until he gets up, frowning, to let Sherlock sit in his place and examine the com.

The first thing Sherlock notices about the com is the scarcity of information on it. All the files, all the clutter people normally leave on their coms, inconsistently sorted into inappropriately named folders, none of that is there. No business cards, no games, no photographs, no books, no videos. Nothing in the calendar, very few contacts--Batma, David, Jim, Judith (Landlady), Patricia, Sadhri, Tetsuo. Neighbours? Friends? This is obviously not her primary identity, especially as she’s a professional--she should have lots of business cards, more contacts. She’s married; she should have photographs. So these are the people she contacts while using her secondary identity. Sherlock considers contacting them, but decides against it. Tedious and inefficient, using humans for information. Much better to look further into the data.

There are _some_ files, just not as many as there should be. Mostly small text files. Sherlock opens them one by one, looking for anything of note. Shopping lists, one or two with dates and times. When he opens one titled “jim,” he is interrupted by John making a soft, surprised noise. He diverts some energy back to his visual processors and turns to look at John. John is staring down at Sherlock’s com, which shows the file Sherlock just opened, two words in an otherwise blank document. 

**caprica six**

Cryptic. But John knows what it means.

“Come on, John,” Sherlock says. “You clearly know this is significant.”

“It’s a... sort of code. For people who use sex bots.”

Ah. So that’s where this case is going. How vulgar. “Sex bots are an utter waste of space, parts, programming, and energy,” Sherlock says.

John coughs delicately. “Yes, but are they relevant to the case?”

“Don’t know. Give me your com.”

John sighs, but he unlocks it and hands it over. Sherlock goes back to the contacts directory from Rachel Walton’s com and finds the address for Jim. He copies the address onto John’s com, and presses the call button.

A flat feminine voice emerges from the com’s speakers. “We take great care with the privacy of our customers. Discretion is our paramount goal. For your safety, please remember our passcode so that we can redirect your call. Please state the passcode now.”

John meets Sherlock’s eyes, and then says, clearly, “Caprica six.”

They get three seconds of quiet electronic music, and then the same voice, slightly less flat this time. “Welcome to Company Co. When you find our company, we find you a companion! Licensed companion robots for rental by day or long-term. All robots are anatomically accurate or made to suit a variety of alternative preferences. All robots are road legal. Robots may be rented with or without additional road vehicle. Our office hours are 8 o’clock to 19 o’clock, companion pick-ups outside of office hours must be prearranged. To speak to a representative or leave a message about issues with a companion, say ‘option one.’ For general inquiries, say ‘option two,’ or visit our office at 9 Beak Street. To make a reservation, say ‘option three.’ Have a nice day!”

Sherlock ends the call. “Elaborate dildos. Have you ever engaged the services of a sex bot, John?” Sherlock asks, peering at him, hoping for an interesting reaction.

John looks partly offended and partly tired. “No. Just because I’m a roboticist doesn’t mean I’m into sex bots, all right? Had a friend who rented one for his stag party, but that was a bit of a lark, we all just sort of sat around and looked at her.”

What an utter waste of time. “But you are familiar with their design?”

“Yes, of course. We covered sex bots at uni, though I don’t think we were supposed to. It wasn’t in the curriculum. The professor just thought it was interesting.”

“Interesting? Humans’ waste of resources just for the sake of sex? Sex bots are ridiculous and pedestrian.”

“No, they are interesting, if you think about it a certain way. If humans can build robots for sex and companionship, what do they need other people for? They’re pretty advanced droids, too.” John leans back, and looks Sherlock up and down, making some assessment. “Are _you_ anatomically accurate?” he asks. “Sorry, I mean, just so I have an idea of all your functions.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. Of course he is; he has to be able to pass as human in all situations. Surely John can manage that small leap of logic. “Is that relevant?” John just claimed not to be interested in sex with androids, surely he doesn’t--

“Just wondering,” John says. He sounds curious, but the type of curiosity cannot be determined.

“I am fully functional.”

John’s eyes widen. “So you can...”

“If it is necessary to fulfill my assigned function, I am capable of sexual activity, yes.” That, at least, has been conclusively proven. “John, I think you should know that I have no interest in sex--”

John interrupts. “I wasn’t--I said, I’m not interested in robots, like that. So it’s fine. It’s all fine.”

Is John lying, or did he really not mean to imply he wanted Sherlock to--? No way to determine that, at this point. Move on. “Now, may we return to the matter at hand?”

“Yes, of course,” John says. 

“Rachel Walton was clearly a frequent user of Company Co.’s services. That would give her a reason to have false identification, and it would explain the flat. She wanted her own flat, rather than a hotel, partly because the regularity of her sex bot meetings made it practical, and partly because she had some interest in a domestic fantasy with the bot. The name in her contacts: Jim, probably what she called the bot, which shows she regularly rented the same bot, and had some idea of a relationship with it. She didn’t spend enough time in the flat to make it look lived-in, however.”

“So you think she was there with the bot.”

“Or she was waiting for the bot to arrive, or it had recently left. We don’t know. We need access to Company Co.’s records.”

“Eight a.m. tomorrow, then?”

“Yes, we need to see the office.”

John glances down at Sherlock’s wrist to read his watch, and appears surprised at what he sees. It is 21:17:43. “Right. I should...” John clears his throat. “I should go home, I guess. Get some sleep.”

“Home?” Sherlock asks, not following John’s train of thought. Why can’t humans be more logical?

“I don’t actually live here, remember? I’ll need to go home.”

Oh. How inconvenient. “You don’t live here _yet_.”

-

“Right, yeah. I guess we did agree on that,” John says, uncomfortable. “I still need to go and fetch my stuff. I don’t have much, I suppose I could get it now, bring it back here tonight?” At some point, he realises, he must have decided he’s really going to do this. Funny how it slipped him by. He still feels wrong-footed. It is strange to be negotiating the dynamics of new flatmates with a _robot_. 

“A suitable plan. Very efficient,” Sherlock says, which from him seems to be high praise.

John considers pointing out that it would be even more efficient if Sherlock came along to help him pack. It’s probably just as well, though. John’s tiny flat is depressing, his belongings minimal far beyond the point of minimalist, and frankly it’s a bit embarrassing. It’s ridiculous to be embarrassed in front of an android, but John’s been working with droids for nearly twenty years and he knows, as people who only encounter robots in hospitals and government offices and libraries never know, that it isn’t like being alone. Robots may not experience embarrassment, but if you work with one for long enough its programming quirks begin to look like personality and you begin to expect the robot to react to awkwardness the way a human would. Even after training in how to see robots as machines.

Maybe that’s dangerous. 

Maybe it’s dangerous, but when Sherlock offered danger, John said _yes_.

He says goodbye to Sherlock, though Sherlock has already returned to the couch and whatever processing or system self-maintenance he does, and clatters down the stairs into the dark street. He walks to the end of the road, enjoying the chill in the air, glancing up for an aerotaxi hovering low enough to be looking for passengers. He’s not in a hurry, doesn’t mind walking a bit to exercise his leg. 

A taxi glides down behind him before he sees it, and pulls up against the kerb. John grins at his luck, and reaches out to open the door. “Thanks, mate.” He climbs in and gives the driver his address, and they gain altitude quickly.

After five minutes, John realises they are going in the wrong direction.


	4. Chapter 4

John sits very still, looking at his knees, trying to pretend he hasn’t noticed the aerotaxi is not going to his flat. If this is an accident, then no harm done, he’ll just tell the driver to turn around once he’s sure. If this is not an accident, he’s hoping to buy himself some time.

Not much more than twenty-four hours after meeting Sherlock, and the promised chance of danger has already come to fruition.

His hand doesn’t shake. 

John examines what he can see of the taxi driver, trying to be subtle. Collar of a grey jumper, short scruffy hair, back of the neck. In the rear-view mirror, he can’t see much more than a forehead. The only possibility John can imagine is that this is related to Sherlock’s case, though why that would necessitate his kidnapping, he doesn’t know. 

After another ten minutes, John realises the taxi is beginning to descend. He looks out the window, wishing he recognised the street they’re on. 

“Here we are,” the driver says cheerfully.

“Where are we?”

“Where you need to go.”

“This isn’t my flat.”

“No? I guess that isn’t where you need to go, then.”

John opens the door. He’s a bit surprised it isn’t locked and even more surprised when the driver just lets him get out and slam the door behind him. John looks around himself, backing away from the taxi. The nearest street lamp is dark, and none of the houses at his back spill any light into the street. The shops across the road are shuttered and dead-looking. John starts walking. When he looks back he sees the taxi lifting into the air. This was not a mistake, but the taxi driver doesn’t seem to be the source of his problems.

A nondescript black car turns onto the street and rolls to a stop next to John. John keeps walking. The car door opens.

“Get into the car, Mr. Watson.” It’s a bland, feminine voice. John can’t see the speaker.

“Why should I?”

“Because you want to know what we want.”

John gets into the car. His therapist would probably have something to say about that. His self-preservation instincts really are shot to hell.

He finds himself sitting next to a pretty dark-haired woman, well-dressed, with a small com in her hands. She doesn’t look at him.

“Hello,” John says. “What’s your name? Since you know mine.”

“Uh... Anthea.”

“Is that your real name?” God, what kind of world does he live in where that is a reasonable question?

“No.”

John tries to look out the window, but the night is dark and the tinted windows make it darker. By the time the car slows to a stop, John has even less idea where he is than before. He gets out of the car.

They are inside a large empty warehouse, the gel lighting too bright and too high to be comfortable.

Standing alone in the middle of the room is a man in a suit, leaning on an umbrella. “Have a seat, John,” he says, pointing his umbrella at a plain metal chair. John simply keeps moving forward, feeling slightly violated by the casual use of his name.

“Most people make appointments,” John says, coming to a stop a few feet away from the man, ignoring the offered chair. “Or you could ring my com. As it is, you know, a _com_. For communication, and all. But I suppose that would be the obvious thing to do.”

“Do sit down. Your leg must be hurting.”

It’s not. It’s stiff, and he knows he’ll limp if he moves, but it’s not painful. “No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” He taps the umbrella against the toe of his shoe, and looks at John speculatively. 

“Is there a reason you kidnapped me, or did you just want to stand there and look at me?”

“I never kidnapped you,” he says, sounding mildly affronted. “You always had the option not to get in the car.”

But he hadn’t known that at the time, had he, so it still amounts to kidnapping. Always best to comply until you know exactly what the situation is. “Aerotaxi takes you to the wrong place, you can’t exactly just open the door and hop out.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.” He looks at John a while, still tapping his umbrella, and then says, “You don’t seem very afraid.”

“You don’t seem very frightening. You did just tell me you weren’t actually kidnapping me.”

He smiles. It is not reassuring. “What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”

“He’s my new flatmate.”

“Odd choice for a flatmate.”

“Or maybe it’s the other way around. Who’d want me for a flatmate?”

The man chuckles. That’s not reassuring either. “I understand you are a robotics technician, invalided home from Afghanistan. You must be looking for work.”

“Not really,” John says tightly. Not when his hand shakes every time he thinks about doing any kind of normal robotics work. 

“Perhaps it is looking for you.”

“Look, who are you?”

“An interested party.”

“Interested in Sherlock? I doubt you’re really interested in me. And I doubt your interest in Sherlock is friendly.”

“John. You know as well as I do that Sherlock Holmes does not have friends.”

That sounds like it means more than the sum of its parts, like this man _knows_ Sherlock does not have friends, is not capable of the emotional connection required to make friends, like he knows _why_. Who is this man, that he may or may not know what Sherlock is? “What does he have, if not friends? What are you to him?”

“As I said. An interested party.” He says “interested” like he might say it about a business or an investment. Like he takes an economic interest in Sherlock. Like Sherlock is a _possession_. John tightens his fingers around his cane. The next thing he says only confirms it. “As you do plan to move into 221B Baker Street, I shall make you an offer. I would be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to... ease your way.”

“Why?”

“Because you are not working in your chosen profession. I am offering you a job.”

He does know. He knows Sherlock is a droid. “What do you get out of it? You want me to make modifications? You want me to hack?” John knew Sherlock was dangerous, that working with him was a gamble, but this is not exactly what he had in mind. John is a moral and ethical man, even about robots, even when others consider them nothing but machines. He will not perform robotics work for anyone he does not trust.

“Oh, no, not at all. Merely deliver some... updates. I do like to know what he’s up to.”

From a mysterious man with mysterious motives and the means to kidnap John and pay him unknown amounts of money, updates sound like hacks. “No.”

An infuriating amused smile. “I haven’t mentioned a figure.”

“Don’t bother.”

“You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand. That’s why you aren’t looking for work. Your therapist thinks it’s post-traumatic stress disorder.”

John stills, his body settling into a mess of tenseness and loose, ready muscles. “Who the hell are you? How do you know that?”

“Show me your hand.”

John clenches his hand into a fist. The man steps across the space between them and looks him up and down, slowly. John uncurls his fingers, almost painfully, and holds up his hand.

“You’re under stress right now, and your hand is perfectly steady. You’ll be able to work, John, if you’re working for me.”

“No, thank you.” Sherlock is undoubtedly aware of the tremor, but it doesn’t seem to concern him. John doesn’t need this man’s money and he can work with Sherlock without breaking all the rules and his own code of ethics. Just knowing there are people like this in the background, _watching_ , is enough. John knows what his therapist thinks, and he knows how this tremor works. His hand shakes if he tries to fix a robot without the sound of gunfire in his ears. His hand shakes if he tries to fix a robot without a countdown in his head, if nothing bad will happen if he doesn’t do it _now_. 

This may not be a kidnapping, but John knows it is dangerous. He knows that if he goes back to Baker Street and Sherlock wants him to adjust a small, fiddly bit of hardware, he will be able to do it. John stands his ground, and feels cold when he sees the smile directed at him.

“It’s your choice. I do hope you’ll reconsider. Good evening, John.”

John doesn’t watch him walk away. He looks down at his left hand, and knows he’s made the right decision.

-

Sherlock has finished organising the available data and is looking up the companion bot rental company’s hub, when he hears John clunking up the stairs. One wheeled suitcase, one suitcase without wheels big enough to bump against each step. Sherlock sets aside his com and gets up, stepping to the living room doorway and watching John climb the stairs. John moves awkwardly, manoeuvring his cane and the wheeled suitcase with the same hand.

“Give us a hand?” John says, breathing heavily. “There’s a trunk by the door.”

He lets John get to the top of the stairs and dump his suitcases on the landing, before passing by him down the stairs. The dark grey polyethylene footlocker is sitting by the bottom of the stairs, scuffed around the edges but clearly cared for conscientiously. Sherlock estimates its weight (approximately 40 kilograms) before he picks it up. It’s heavier than expected; he adjusts accordingly, and cycles through a list of its possible and probable contents. 

Sherlock carries the trunk up the stairs and into the living room. “Christ, Sherlock, I couldn’t lift that,” John says.

“It was heavier than anticipated,” Sherlock admits. “But I am able to carry up to 200 kilograms. What’s inside?”

“Textbooks, mostly. Manuals. My robotics library.”

“Paper books? How inefficient.”

“Hey, just because you can’t appreciate the appeal of a paper book. I always found it easier to study with, paper. Bit weird for a bot tech, I know.”

Sentiment for outdated modes of transmitting information is so tiresome. Sherlock ignores it and sits down on the floor in front of the trunk, looking at the lock. He could pick it, but that isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do to the belongings of one’s new flatmate. “Key?”

“What are you going to do?” John asks. Sherlock wonders why he’s hesitating, then looks up. Oh, suspicion. Waste of time.

“I only want to examine your books. There may be valuable information in them.”

“What, for the case?”

“The case? No, that’s on hold until 8 o’clock tomorrow. The key, please.”

John hesitates a moment longer, then pulls his keyring out of his trouser pocket and hands it over. Sherlock identifies the correct key with no difficulties, and unlocks the trunk. It is stacked full of books--that explains the unexpected weight. There’s a side compartment, what--? Ah. To be expected. Most roboticists have a remote robot disabling device in case they ever need to quickly incapacitate a robot. 

“My room’s upstairs, yeah? Mrs. Hudson said--”

“Yes, yes, the room upstairs.”

John walks to the window and looks out, and then turns back to the room. Sherlock, momentarily distracted from the books, watches him. Body language suggests nervousness. 

“Something wrong?”

John twitches back the curtains, looking out again. “I met a friend of yours,” he says.

“A friend?” A familiar word. Noun: a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of romantic or family relations. Familiar in definition if not in experience, of course. Many suspects in his cases have been friends of the victim.

“Well, an interested party, he said.”

Oh. Mycroft, then. Definitely not a friend, in the traditional sense or any other. Should have known he’d arrange a meeting with John. “Did he offer you money to spy on me?”

“I think he was offering me money to do your maintenance. The way he wanted it done, of course.”

“And did you take it?”

“No.” 

Interesting. Possible motivations: loyalty, ethics (John must have assumed Mycroft wanted him to implement harmful software), disinterest in money, dislike of Mycroft. Sherlock adds it to his growing file on John, and leaves the motivations for later evaluation.

“Who is he?” John asks. “He obviously knows you’re a droid.”

Sherlock calculates the advantages and disadvantages of telling John who Mycroft is. No, no point in not telling. Best to prepare John in case Mycroft makes any more advances. “I should hope he knows I’m a droid,” Sherlock says. “As it’s his fault.”

John sits heavily on the couch, and looks at Sherlock. “You mean, he--he created you?”

Creation. Yes, he did that, but Sherlock’s file on the word is larger than is warranted for what he did. Creation: art (incomprehensible), God (ridiculous), literature and popular culture (annoying but likely to be relevant to cases). Sherlock is a masterpiece of creation, obviously, but that’s only because he is more than the sum of his parts. Mycroft is merely the child that put the model aeroplane together. The design itself was the work of various top-secret parts of government; Mycroft merely modified and improved it. “Yes, he’s a proper Frankenstein.” Not an accurate comparison at all, of course, but calculated to appeal to John.

“He made you and abandoned you?” John asks, showing a better understanding of the plot of the novel than Sherlock had expected.

“Certainly not. I abandoned him.”

John takes a deep breath. “Well, I see why you would. He is a bit of a creep, isn’t he?”

Sherlock grins. “I suppose he knew things about you he had no right to know.”

“He knew what my therapist’s diagnosis was.” John looks down at his hands, and back at Sherlock. “It’s not creepy when you know things I never told you. You’re a robot, it makes sense you can work out things other people can’t.”

“Oh, he didn’t work it out. He’s probably read your medical record. Or your therapist’s notebook.”

John blanches. Fear? Illness? Oh, privacy laws. “Don’t worry, he’ll only use it to intimidate you.”

“It’s working, a bit. So is he a criminal mastermind, or...?”

“Why would a criminal mastermind build a robot that solves crimes for the police? No, officially he is a minor British government official.”

“And unofficially?”

“Unofficially he _is_ the British government.” Not quite accurate, a generalisation, but true enough for John’s purposes. An accurate picture of Mycroft’s resources, certainly. 

“The British government is building illegal robots for the police?”

Sherlock’s profile of John is already complete enough not to be surprised that John is focusing on the illegalities involved. “He didn’t build me for the police. He is much more selfish than that. He built his PA because none of his human assistants were efficient enough.”

“Oh God,” John says faintly. What? What’s wrong with him? “His assistant? Pretty, dark hair? She’s a droid?”

“Yes. An inferior one. He improved the design when he built me.”

“I just tried to hit on her...”

“And you were obviously not successful, so it doesn’t matter. Droid 572A is irrelevant.”

John makes a visible attempt to calm himself, and, thankfully, moves on from the discussion of the assistant droid. “So you started working for the police after you abandoned him? But your primary function is still as a detective. What did he have you doing?”

Sherlock runs his hands over the books in John’s trunk. Sometimes stimulating his sensors gives an extra boost to his processing power. “Solving cases. _His_ cases. Doing his legwork. It was all _boring_. He wasn’t using me to my full capacity. He wouldn’t let me do things in the most efficient manner. He said I was careless, which is ridiculous. I’m a robot; I can’t die. And anyway I can’t truly violate the Third Law.” A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

“He built you for efficiency and he wasn’t letting you be efficient,” John murmurs. “That’s sort of... beautiful. He did such a good job building you you were too good for him. And that’s why you needed a maintenance tech.” John leans his head on his hand, still looking at Sherlock, but clearly thinking. “Hang on, Sergeant Donovan said you’d been working for the police for five years. You haven’t had a maintenance tech for five years?”

“I didn’t need any maintenance.” A lie. Sherlock lies flawlessly, of course.

John seems to be immune. “Don’t be stupid, of course you did.” 

“Mycroft kidnapped me once or twice,” Sherlock concedes. “Fixed me up. But I prefer not to rely on Mycroft’s help.”

“Well, that’s why you have me now, isn’t it?” John smiles. Sherlock’s catalogue of facial expressions reads the smile easily. Warmth. Reassurance. Offer of comfort. 

Sherlock doesn’t need comfort. Still, he adds the smile to his profile of John. It might be worth remembering.

-

The facade of Company Co., the companion bot rental agency, is clean and recently painted dark blue. Cream-coloured curtains hang in the windows, but a sign in front of them says, “Licensed companion bots for rent.” It all looks much classier than John ever would have expected a business that rents sex bots to look. But then, so many of John’s expectations about robots and the businesses that use them date from a time before the increased regulations, back when sex bots were a lot less standardised and probably a lot cheaper to rent.

A sign on the door says they’re open for business, though Sherlock barely glances at it before he’s pushing the door open and striding in. John looks around self-consciously before he follows.

John had hesitated before agreeing to come along on this excursion. Fixing Sherlock when he breaks and upgrading his software is one thing, but joining in his investigations is another. It’s hardly what John imagined himself doing when he thought about life after Afghanistan. He still isn’t sure why Sherlock deemed his presence necessary. He’s seen what Sherlock does now, so observation is no longer the primary reason for him to come along. Nevertheless, Sherlock had overruled his objections. And to be honest, John was curious. It’s not as if he’s ever got off on the idea of sex with a robot, but the fact that other people _do_ fascinates him. The fact that some people rent companion bots not for just for sex, but for actual companionship, worries him. 

John’s military instincts always make him evaluate a room when he enters it. White walls, small. A counter with a desk behind it, and one door into the back of the shop. A young, pretty blonde woman is sitting at the desk. She looks up when the bell over the door dings, and smiles. “Welcome to Company Co.,” she says, getting out of her chair and stepping to the counter. “I’m Louisa. How can I help you?” She seems sweet and shy and not who John would have expected to work here, any more than he would have expected the well-kept building.

“Sherlock Holmes and John Watson,” Sherlock says brusquely. “We’re with the police.” He flashes what is evidently a police badge, too quick for anything but the Metropolitan Police logo to be visible. That can’t actually be _his_ , John realises. Lestrade only seems to put up with him out of necessity; he doesn’t actually work for the police.

“The police? Is something wrong?”

“That is what we are trying to determine. Do you have a Rachel Walton in your files?”

“Oh, our client files are confidential, we can’t give out any information unless you have a warrant.” 

John winces, thinking they’re probably out of luck, but Sherlock doesn’t seem bothered. Sherlock seems far from bothered.

Sherlock _smiles_.

It’s the most charming, disarming, and magnetic smile John has ever seen. Even from the side, the smile is overpowering. Being the focus of it must be utterly irresistible. 

Louisa melts.

“Are you sure?” Sherlock asks. “I only need to know if you have a file on her; I don’t need you to tell me what’s in the file.” The Sherlock John sees now bears no resemblance to the Sherlock with whom John has spent the past twenty-four hours. He’s cheerful, he’s charming, and it’s working. 

“Well...” Louisa hedges.

“Please? I promise not to tell anyone.”

“Well, all right.” She smiles shyly and turns to the file cabinet sitting against the wall next to the desk. She opens the bottom drawer and flips through files, looking for Rachel Walton. “Yes, she’s here.”

John feels a thrum of excitement in his chest. He’s not actually surprised, given what they found on the com, but he can tell they’re getting somewhere with the case

“Excellent,” Sherlock says. “Can you try Jeffrey Patterson, Beth Davenport, and James Phillimore?”

“No Beth Davenport, no Jeffrey Patterson. Hang on, I do have a James Phillimore.”

Sherlock and John exchange glances. They have their connection. 

“Excellent, thank you so much. Were you working yesterday?”

“No, I never work Saturdays. I have my dance class that day. My boss was here, Mr. Hope.”

“Does he have a business card we can have? We’d like to get in contact with him.”

“Yes, right there on the counter.” 

Sherlock looks down at the counter and sees a scannable business card. “Oh, I didn’t even see that! Wonderful. Thank you, Louisa.” Sherlock swipes his com over the card, automatically transmitting it to his file of business cards. He gives Louisa a brilliant smile again, and then sweeps out of the shop, the door ringing in his wake. John nods and smiles also, and follows.

“So you can be polite,” John says when he catches up to Sherlock on the street.

“It is occasionally expedient to charm the witnesses.”

“Right, yes, that did seem to work. And where did you get that police badge?”

“It’s Lestrade’s. I pickpocket him when he’s being inefficient. I’ve got several back at the flat.”

John has an inconvenient urge to giggle hysterically. Sherlock gives him a quelling look, and he brings his mind back to the case. “So were they all murdered because they all rented companion bots from the same place?”

“Only two of them are proven to have rented companion bots,” Sherlock says, although he seems more vibrant than usual, walking faster. He seems almost excited. “Could be a coincidence.”

“But it’s not, though, is it?”

“No. It’s a connection. We’ll have to contact Lestrade, get him to re-examine the previous cases, find out if anyone knows whether the victims engaged companion bots.”

“Should we look up this Hope bloke, see if he knows anything?” 

“Not yet. I want to establish a connection between all four victims first, so we have a better idea what we’re looking for.” He pulls out his com before John has a chance to answer, and scrolls through several screens before he gets Lestrade on a vidcall. John, unable to see the screen, watches Sherlock’s face and listens to the conversation.

“Ah, Sherlock.”

“Are you in my flat?” Sherlock asks, frowning.

“Yes, we’ve found something rather interesting, which _you_ said we ought to look for. And you’ve been stealing evidence again.”

“Oh, honestly. I suppose you think I had something to do with the murders now, do you? And what, did you just break into my flat?”

“No, I don’t think you’re the murderer, but we’re going to have a little chat about withholding evidence and stealing it off our crime scenes. Hurry up and get back here.”

Lestrade breaks the connection before Sherlock can make a retort, and Sherlock puts his com away. “We’ll have to go back to Baker Street. I did want to speak to Lestrade, at least.”

He hails an aerotaxi with somewhat infuriating ease, and once again, John follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going with a Monday/Wednesday/Friday posting schedule, so the next part will be up on Monday and it will be finished next Friday. Thanks for reading, everybody!


	5. Chapter 5

“Sherlock, what have you done?”

Mrs. Hudson hurries into the hallway the moment she hears the door slam shut behind them. Facial expression: worried, anxious. She is undoubtedly referring to the police officers Sherlock knows are upstairs, but he can’t be sure why she thinks he’s done something. “Done” in this case being idiomatic, meaning “done something wrong.” Perhaps a natural assumption stemming from the presence of the police.

Sherlock ignores the idiom. “I have done many things,” he says, and goes upstairs.

He opens the door to the flat and sees immediately what’s going on. Lestrade is seated in one of the armchairs, Rachel Walton’s bag sitting on the table next to him, unmoved from where Sherlock last saw it. Six other police officers are present in the flat, notably Donovan and Anderson. Sherlock knows the others--their names and faces are in his files--but they aren’t important. All of them are rummaging around the flat, clearly looking for something, and just as clearly enjoying poking around in Sherlock’s possessions whether or not they find what they’re looking for. “Is this just breaking and entering, or do you have an excuse?” Sherlock says to Lestrade.

“I’m not breaking and entering,” Lestrade says. “You stole evidence from a murder investigation. Though officially speaking, this is a drugs bust.” 

“Seriously?” John bursts out. “You think _he’s_ a junkie?”

Oh, how tedious. Now Sherlock is going to have to explain to John what happens when he isn’t maintenanced often enough. “You’re not going to find anything,” Sherlock tells Lestrade. At least, Lestrade isn’t going to find what he’s looking for. And all Sherlock’s illegal robotics equipment is well-hidden--except, of course, himself--so it’s not a problem, but it is inconvenient. 

“Are you sure?”

Sherlock ignores the question. “This isn’t the drugs division. What’s Anderson doing here?”

“Oh, I volunteered,” Anderson says from the kitchen.

“None of them are, strictly speaking, on the drug squad, but they’re very keen.”

Ridiculous. Humans: voyeurism, schadenfreude, petty revenge. Donovan: “Are these human eyes?” Estimation of humans: confirmed.

“Put those back.”

“They were in the microwave.” 

Well, of course they were in the microwave. “It’s an experiment.”

“If you start cooperating properly, I’ll stand them down,” Lestrade says. He gets out of the armchair and turns to the bag on the table. “Listen, I know you think we’re all unbearably slow, but you can’t withhold evidence. This is our case. You can help, but you can’t go off on your own and not tell us when you find important evidence. And you definitely can’t steal.”

“It’s irrelevant evidence.”

“Is it?”

“The bag is. John got us into the com. We have our connection between Rachel Walton and James Phillimore.”

Sherlock senses a sudden lack of movement in the room. All the police, who have been looking for a connection between these mysterious, unconnected suicides for months, are suddenly frozen in shock. John removes his com from his pocket, unfolds it partway, types in the address for Company Co., and turns up the volume. The call connects.

“We take great care with the privacy of our customers. Discretion is our paramount goal. For your safety, please remember our passcode so that we can redirect your call. Please state the passcode now.”

John says, “Caprica six,” and the police listen to the message in utter silence.

“We need to find out if the others rented companion bots,” Sherlock says when John has disconnected the call and explained how they got the address and passcode off the com. “Walton and Phillimore were in the company’s records, but the others may also have a connection; they may have used false ID, since we know Rachel Walton did so. You’ll need to contact the manager, Jefferson Hope, who was working yesterday when Walton would have come in, if she did come in.”

“Did you get her real identity?” Lestrade asks.

“Yes.”

“Hang on, you didn’t tell me that,” John says. He sounds annoyed. 

“It was hardly urgent. Her real name was Jennifer Wilson. She was married to a Daniel Arthur Wilson.”

“How did you work that out?” John asks. John’s constant need to understand Sherlock’s logical processes is, surprisingly, not yet becoming tedious. Sherlock explains.

“The address on her com screen when it was broken, the call she was trying to make. It was lost when you retrieved the files because she never actually made the call, but I was able to use the bits we had to run through the London identification directory and find the man. It was simply a matter of looking at his public profile to find out that Rachel Walton was actually his wife, Jennifer Wilson. I don’t know why she was trying to call him as she was dying. That doesn’t make any sense.” Sherlock turns to John, testing John’s potential for interpreting human emotion. “If you were being murdered, in your last moments, who would you want to talk to?”

“My family.”

“Don’t be stupid, you’re only saying that because Jennifer Wilson called her husband. Use your imagination.”

“I don’t have to.”

Oh. Interesting. Useful data? John shifts his feet. Body language suggests awkwardness, embarrassment, repressed anger. Why is he embarrassed? Sherlock looks around at the various police officers, all of whom are looking at John, wearing facial expressions that signify pity and guilt. He turns back to John. “But you didn’t die. Why are you still bothered by it?”

“Thinking about how I might have died?” John says, calmly. He sounds... oh, teaching. He knows Sherlock is a learning droid; is this something he wants Sherlock to learn? “Hypotheticals about what if I had? Makes me a little uncomfortable. Just for future reference.”

“Our favourite psychopath, ladies and gentlemen,” Anderson says.

No point in correcting him; psychiatric diagnoses are irrelevant to Sherlock. It doesn’t matter what Anderson thinks. “This is irrelevant anyway,” Sherlock says. “The connection is Company Co. We need to know if the other two victims were customers there, if they rented companion droids before they died, why these four and not others were the victims. Was Jefferson Hope always working when they rented droids? The case still has several gaps. You’ll need to get a warrant to examine Company Co.’s records.”

“Yes, thanks, we know how to do our jobs.” Lestrade turns to the rest of the room, and barks, “All right, everyone, pack up, we’ve got a new lead.”

In the flurry of activity that follows, John sidles up to Sherlock and asks under his breath, “Why does Lestrade think you do drugs?”

“Because he’s an idiot.”

“He’s not, Sherlock. He has a reason.”

Obviously, Sherlock is not getting out of this. “I’ll explain after they leave,” he says.

-

John watches the police leave, thinking hard. Something makes DI Lestrade think Sherlock is, or was, into drugs. What could a robot do that would look like drugs? He’s never heard of anything like that, but then, so few robots look human enough for a connection to drugs to even occur to anyone. John sits down in his armchair, and watches Sherlock close the living room door behind the last police officer and move to sit down across from John.

“After I left Mycroft,” Sherlock begins, “I was infected with a virus.”

“A computer virus?”

“Obviously. It affected me in unexpected ways. My reactions were strangely similar to the effects of cocaine. There is no research on how viruses might affect convincing true-humanoid robots, and it affected me in some surprisingly human ways, so it went undiagnosed for some time.”

And Sherlock claims he doesn’t need a maintenance tech. “Don’t you have some kind of antivirus subroutine?”

“It slipped past, initially,” Sherlock says, sounding irritated about it. “After that...”

“What?”

“I told you its effects mimicked cocaine. I... allowed it to continue.”

John stares. He looks at the way Sherlock’s hair is curling tighter than it was earlier this morning, the smudge of dust on the side of his jaw, the life in his eyes. Sherlock is... seems to be... saying that he let a virus onto his system because he _liked the effects_. That is incomprehensible. That a robot can feel the effects of a virus as a drug, can feel differently, can feel good, can feel _anything_.

What does it even matter, then, that Sherlock is a robot? What difference is there between Sherlock and John, between robot and human? Only that John can’t trust Sherlock, can’t trust that there isn’t a difference or won’t someday be a difference.

“You’re telling me the virus made you feel good. You can feel _pleasure_.”

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

“What would you call it, then?” John asks, voice tense, feeling an urge to get up and move around the room and a conflicting need to stay sitting, to stay calm and still. “Because that’s what it sounds like.”

“I don’t, ordinarily, experience anything that corresponds with the definition of pleasure as I understand it.”

“So, what, the virus made you feel it, when you don’t normally?”

“I still wouldn’t call it pleasure, but it did make me--” Sherlock breaks off with a strangely frustrated noise. “How does anyone describe this sort of thing? It’s impossible. What a ridiculous language.”

“That’s what we have poetry for.”

“Oh, poetry. Ridiculous. I skipped it.”

“So you can feel.” It’s a mindblowing prospect; John has no idea how he says it so calmly.

“Don’t start counting on me feeling things about people, that’s not how it works.”

“Fine. You don’t look like you’re on cocaine now, so what happened?”

“Mycroft eventually found out and kidnapped me to get rid of the virus. He told everyone I was in a rehabilitation centre, which is why they’re all convinced I might have drugs.”

John shifts uncomfortably, flexing his fingers on the handle of his cane. “Would you do it again?”

Sherlock says flatly, “No.”

And there it is, the point where John remembers that he’s not sure he can trust a truth from a robot’s mouth.

“Fine,” John says. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, resolves to think about this later, when Sherlock isn’t looking at him, isn’t looking so human. “I’ll just clean up a bit.”

Sherlock gets up abruptly, and moves to the sofa. “Good. I have case files to deal with.”

And that’s that. Sherlock just gets more impossible, and John just says, “all right,” and gets on with tidying. 

What a ridiculous life John lives now.

John sets to work putting the flat back to rights. The kitchen is the worst mess, though John isn’t sure that’s any more the police’s fault than it is Sherlock’s. The eyeballs are the most grisly discovery--John had yet to open the microwave, so he hadn’t seen them yet, and honestly he’s glad Sergeant Donovan saved him the surprise. He sets the jar on the counter and stares at it, feeling his stomach quiver. The eyeballs are still mostly intact, but they are oozing slightly. It’s not as if he didn’t see a lot of blood and gore in Afghanistan, but something about eyeballs in particular is... unsettling. Things like this do not belong in a kitchen. Sherlock doesn’t eat, obviously, so he doesn’t care. Maybe it hasn’t occurred to him that John _does_ need to eat.

“Sherlock,” John calls. 

“What?”

John picks up the jar of eyeballs and walks over to the kitchen doorway. “What do you want me to do with the eyeballs?” he asks, waving the jar in Sherlock’s direction.

“Put them back in the microwave. I will deal with it later.”

“What if I need to use the microwave?” John asks reasonably.

“Then put them somewhere else.”

John sighs, and begins to suspect that this is his first lesson in the realities of having a robot for a flatmate. He ventures further into the living room, still carrying the eyeballs, and when he gets as far as the sofa he sets the jar down in the middle of Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock opens his eyes and bends his head to look down the line of his chest at the eyeballs. The view must be lovely, John thinks. 

“Rule number one,” John says. “If you’re going to live with me--or any other human--you can’t treat the kitchen like a laboratory. I have to eat, and I have to use the kitchen to eat, and I don’t want to have to look at decomposing human body parts while I’m doing it. It’s disgusting.”

Sherlock looks up at John. “What if you cook meat?”

“What?” There’s a leap of logic John didn’t follow.

“If you cook meat, you’ll have decomposing animal parts in the kitchen. How does that differ from decomposing human body parts?”

“How does that differ--” John begins, and then breaks off to take a couple of deep breaths. He had known when he agreed to this that he would have to explain things to Sherlock. If Sherlock hasn’t had a maintenance tech in years, hasn’t had anyone close enough to ask about things he doesn’t understand, then John will just have to be prepared to answer the uncomfortable questions. The police have clearly never bothered--they simply dismiss Sherlock as a psychopath, incapable of understanding basic human things--but then, the police don’t know that Sherlock is an android, capable of learning. Or, at least, of assimilating new data. 

John actually has to think about why human parts are different from animal parts. “Because...” he tries. “Because with human parts, I feel like they belonged to someone. I see eyeballs, and I know on more than an intellectual level that someone used to use them to see. Hell, someone probably looked into them and thought they were beautiful.” He looks back at the jar, feeling even sicker now he’s trying to express why he feels sick in the first place. “Human body parts still feel human even when they’re... unattached. But an animal part, at least an animal part I’m going to cook, is just a piece of meat. I bought it from a shop and it’s only my brain that knows it used to be an animal.”

Sherlock considers this, fingertips pressed against his lips. “What if I brought home, say, a liver. You’re not trained in anatomy, you wouldn’t know the difference between a human liver and an animal liver. If I told you it was an animal liver--”

“Christ, please never do that,” John interrupts. “You are not allowed to turn me into a cannibal as an experiment. No, if you’re going to have body parts in the flat, they must be in sealed, labelled containers, on a designated shelf of the refrigerator.”

“Fine. Which shelf?”

“The bottom one,” John says, and returns to the kitchen, leaving the eyeballs behind on Sherlock’s chest. He unearths his electric kettle from one of his suitcases and puts it on to boil, letting the routine of making tea settle his stomach and his nerves. He’s not regretting this whole adventure, certainly, but it is clearly going to be just as much manoeuvring around an inconsiderate flatmate and explaining simple concepts to him as upgrading software and running off to crime scenes.

Tea made and thoughts of unwitting forced cannibalism repressed, John pulls out his com and sits down in what he already considers his armchair.

His course of mandatory therapy sessions isn’t over. He has another appointment next week and one more two weeks after that. John doesn’t really think these sessions have helped and he doesn’t think writing in his blog will help, but he’s always been a little too conscientious for his own good. He is sceptical of therapy--why _talk_ about your problems when _doing_ something about them will inevitably be the right solution? And the blog--why talk about your life when you could be living it? But of course he hasn’t really been living his life since he got home from Afghanistan, so he hasn’t had anything to talk about anyway.

He doesn’t care about disappointing Ella by not writing in his blog, but he does care about documenting his work. Sherlock is the most incredible robot John has ever seen, and despite the difficulties John is thrilled to be working with him. Since Sherlock left his last maintenance tech--his creator--maybe nobody has ever done this work before. It is _new_ , in the kind of way John has always dreamed of achieving with robotics, and that’s exciting. In the event that John is ever allowed to reveal what he’s doing with Sherlock, he wants a record of it. 

He can’t be explicit on his blog, of course, but he can talk about what Sherlock does. He can talk about Sherlock’s cases if he leaves out the details, and Sherlock’s methods are fair game.

John wants to write about Sherlock. He might as well appease Ella by writing about Sherlock where she can see it.

_I know I said nothing ever happens to me. But last Friday, something happened._

-

Sherlock has completed his case file organisation (no conclusions yet, information from Lestrade pending), disposed of the eyeballs (unfortunate and unexpected demand from John, but the experiment was inconclusive anyway), and is sitting on the sofa considering what he wants to do now he has a maintenance tech. There are many interesting modifications to his design he’s considered, many possible improvements. He will have to put in orders for all the parts he wants replaced. 

He is checking his parts suppliers’ hubs when a call from Lestrade comes in. He taps the screen to accept the call, and lifts his com to eye level. He is aware of John’s sudden attention, shifted away from his own com to Sherlock. 

“Well?”

Sherlock already knows Lestrade’s inquiry has been a success. Lestrade is clearly trying to keep his face blank, but the slight suggestion of a grin around his mouth is a giveaway, and Sherlock’s body language analysis reads his mood as triumphant and determined. The view behind Lestrade’s head is clearly of his office.

“You were right,” Lestrade says. “We got a warrant to examine Company Co.’s files, and we’ve looked at the files for all the deaths again. We’ve brought a couple of the witnesses back in.”

Obvious. That’s what Sherlock told him to do, of course that’s what he did. “Get to the point,” Sherlock snaps.

Lestrade frowns. Annoyance. “Anyway, you were right. James Phillimore is in their records, he rented a companion bot the night he died. None of his friends knew he was going to, which is why we didn’t know. We looked through all the rentals for the day Jeffrey Patterson died--there was only one that fit the bill. He used a fake ID. Beth Davenport’s bot was rented using her sister’s ID, Amy Casper--she didn’t tell us because she thought Ms. Davenport was planning to return the bot before the time of the murder, but the records show that didn’t happen. And Rachel Walton did rent a bot the day she died. All the companion bots returned alone. That’s normal--if you rent the bot with a vehicle you can send it back on its own.”

“There’s no proof they were with their companion bots when they died,” Sherlock says. 

“No, there isn’t. And we can’t question the bots. The company wipes their memory between customers.”

“Rachel Walton rented her companion bot from the manager, Jefferson Hope. Who was working when the others rented bots?”

“Jefferson Hope. That could be a coincidence--he seems to work a lot.”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence.” Not if you look hard enough. Somewhere, somehow, there are always connections, if only you have the processing power necessary to analyze all the components. “When is Jefferson Hope working next?”

“This evening. But look, Sherlock, don’t go doing anything stupid. He doesn’t know he’s a suspect. We can’t go and talk to him until we get confirmation on a couple more things.”

“I won’t,” Sherlock promises, and closes the call screen. He will do nothing that is not calculated to produce the best results.

“You will though, won’t you?” John asks. He is still sitting in his armchair across the room (interesting how Sherlock has already designated that chair John’s), looking at Sherlock.

“I don’t do stupid things, I’m a droid.”

“Fine. What are you planning?”

Sherlock evaluates the merits of bringing John in on his plans. Back-up only, of course. All the victims rented their companion bots alone. That may not be significant, but it’s not a factor worth changing. Sherlock considers John’s limp. Not much use in any situation where running is required, though Sherlock has a theory about that. This might be a convenient way to test his theory. He is slowly filling out his profile of John Watson. He suspects that John will not take kindly to being left out. 

“I am going to rent a companion bot,” Sherlock announces. 

John’s face does not show as much surprise as Sherlock was expecting. “And then what?” he asks.

“And then I shall wait for someone to make me poison myself. Which will, of course, be unsuccessful, given I lack a real digestive system.”

“What if they have other weapons?” John asks. “RRDDs, something that could do you damage?”

“That is why you will be following me. You could, of course, merely fix the damage later, but preventative measures are much more efficient. And if I am disabled you can jump in and prevent the criminals from escaping.”

“I don’t have any weapons.”

Sherlock looks at John, not verbally refuting the claim, just looking. He knows John has a remote robot disabling device. He could use it to temporarily disable a robot, or depending on the model possibly even stun a human under certain conditions.

John visibly swallows, and nods.

Sherlock is unable to shoot a gun at a human, even a stun gun. This has never been an inconvenience for him, but it is sometimes strange to know that the same restriction does not apply to people. John could shoot him or anyone else, if he chose. John won’t, but John could. 

That is the single most difficult aspect of being a detective and a droid. Sherlock can never fully account for all the possibilities humans produce. Sherlock cannot calculate the infinity of possible actions encompassed in every human. Humans have no restrictions scripted into their programming; they _could_ do anything. Sherlock can calculate probabilities, of course: John could, but he won’t. 

But he could.

“Do you have any idea how they’re made to take the poison?” John asks.

“Only probabilities,” Sherlock answers. “I can’t be sure.”


	6. Chapter 6

At 17:32:12, Sherlock opens the door of Company Co. and steps inside. He catalogues the changes in the room since their visit earlier in the day. Business card on the counter shifted two inches to the left. Insignificant. The only notable difference is the identity of the person standing behind the counter. 

Age: approximately 57. Hair: faded grey, cut short. Eye colour: blue. Height: 177 centimetres. Weight: 89 kilograms. Clothing: pale blue shirt, black and grey striped tie, black polyester trousers. Shoes invisible behind the counter. Facial expression: Cheerful. Welcoming. 

“Hello,” he says. “Welcome to Company Co. I’m Jefferson. How may I help you?” Voice: north London, no distinguishing features yet apparent. No information there.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. I want to rent a companion droid.” There is no reason to suppose Mr. Hope knows who he is, since Louisa wouldn’t have told Hope she’d given information, against company policy, to two policemen. He is undoubtedly aware that the police have requested copies of his files, but there is no reason to connect Sherlock’s name to that. Still, there is a perceptible shift in Hope’s demeanour upon hearing Sherlock’s name. It is not an entirely identifiable shift, not quite what would be expected of a murderer who realises he’s been caught. His shoulders move slightly, his smile becomes more genuine. Sherlock’s analysis of the change: it is relaxation. Mr. Hope has shed his professional body language and is now prepared to speak as though to someone he knows. 

Interesting.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Obviously.” 

“This your first time renting a companion bot?”

“Yes.”

“Just got curious? Want a bit of fun? Human partner not satisfying you?”

Surely it’s not in the best interests of a business to question the motives of the customers. Hitch in the voice on the last question--significant? Suggestive of past experience, possible motives? Further examination will be necessary. “Testing a hypothesis,” Sherlock says shortly.

“What kind of bot are you interested in? Female? Male? Nonbinary? Tentacles?”

What does it matter? It’s all bodies, all for the same messy ridiculous purpose. “Surprise me.”

“You’ll want the included road vehicle, of course.”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Wait here while I fetch our best bot for you.”

Mr. Hope disappears through the door to the back of the shop. While he waits, Sherlock analyzes the data. 

Hope clearly knows that Sherlock is not a normal customer. Any other customer would have had preferences, little ideas about what the bot should look like--breasts like their ex-girlfriend, a chin like a famous actor--or about what the bot should do. Even before that, before Sherlock had said anything but his own name, Hope had known something. Hope clearly has some idea who Sherlock is. How? Will it skew the results of this experiment? 

Or is Hope going to recreate the conditions of the previous murders, just to show Sherlock what he did, how he made four people poison themselves? Why would he do that? Ah, of course. One of the few failings of the genius, of the serial killer. Sherlock is the audience. Someone has to know how it was done, and appreciate it. Well, Hope is out of luck if he’s hoping for appreciation. Sherlock doesn’t appreciate a good murder, it’s simply his function to solve them. But he must know how it was done, he must be in possession of all the facts to make a complete picture of this case, to identify patterns and to file it properly so it may be easily accessed for later use. 

Jefferson Hope steps back into the room. He is followed by a companion bot.

Most robots don’t look human. The vast majority are nonhumanoid, commonly referred to as bots, in contrast to androids, the humanoid variety, or robots, the umbrella term. Many bots look like mere machines, a few are shaped somewhat like animals. Androids fall into two categories. The most common are anthromorph, those robots which are human in form without being human in appearance, and without having a full range of human-like capabilities. 

Despite being popularly referred to as bots, sex bots are true-humanoid androids, meant to imitate humans in behavior and, to a certain level of detail, appearance. Sherlock is a true-humanoid android, but he in no other way shares traits with a sex bot. He is the only robot he is aware of that is truly able to pass for human in intelligence, behaviour, and appearance.

The companion bot undoubtedly fails to pass for human in intelligence and interactive capabilities, but it comes surprisingly close in appearance. From a distance of at least 18 metres, the robot would appear human. Up close, of course, the pale pink skin is clearly plastic, the short black hair clearly artificial, and the eyes clearly made of glass. In details, it would be impossible to mistake the bot for a human. Its skin is too perfect, its form too ideal. Its movements are not smooth enough to appear natural. It looks like a doll, dressed up in plain shirt and trousers, doll’s clothes. 

The bot’s form is clearly male. Sherlock can’t be sure whether this is the same bot that the four victims rented, but he thinks it possible that it is, and adds the bot’s specifications to his files on the four victims.

“Will this fellow do?” Hope asks. “We call him Jim.”

Of course. This was Rachel Walton’s bot. That explains the name in her com.

“Good evening,” the bot says, its voice slightly metallic and tinny.

“Fine,” Sherlock answers. “Shall I fill out the appropriate forms and scan my bank card?”

Mr. Hope smiles. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Mr. Holmes. After all, by the time the transaction goes through, you won’t be around any longer to pay the bill, will you?”

Ah. Well, no need to pretend to be a normal customer, then. “Do you really expect me to fall for whatever trick those four idiots fell for?” Sherlock asks. “Whatever worked on them won’t work on me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hope answers. “One way or another, by the end of the night, you’ll be dead. That’s the only reason I’m letting you see how this works. There’s no real proof I had anything to do with it--I have an excellent alibi. It’s only your word, so you’d better not be around to give your word when they ask for it. But I’ll satisfy curiosity. There’s no harm in that. You _want_ to know. How it works. And you don’t know yet. So you’ll go along with it, Mr. Holmes, you’ll find out, and I won’t be the one to tell you.”

Sherlock still doesn’t know how the four deaths happened. Mr. Hope has just admitted his own guilt, but if he wasn’t actually present for the murders, that leaves...

“Come along, Jim,” Sherlock says to the companion bot. 

-

Robots don’t kill people. It’s the First Law of Robotics. A robot may not harm a human being or allow a human being to come to harm. The Second Law forbids robots from harming humanity as a whole. To change that would be to change the most deeply embedded part of the base code common to all robots. It is widely believed to be impossible to strip a robot of the Three Laws. The First Law is what prevents Sherlock from shooting anyone.

A companion bot cannot have killed four people. So says conventional wisdom.

Sherlock knows, however, that conventional wisdom is often wrong. A robot able to violate the First Law of Robotics is not an impossibility--it is merely very, very improbable. 

Jefferson Hope was not present at any of the four crime scenes. Four people did not simply coincidentally rent companion bots and then commit suicide in the same way. These have been eliminated as impossibilities, and what remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Jim the companion bot is somehow responsible for these deaths.

-

John waits in the back of the cab at the end of the road, eyes on the bright patch of light that marks the entrance to Company Co. He is extremely conscious of the modified RRDD tucked into the waistband of his trousers, pressing into the small of his back as he slouches in his seat. He’s fairly certain Sherlock doesn’t know that John modified it, and he’s worried about what’s going to happen if he has to use it. John’s still not sure why he did that.

“What’re we waiting for?” the cabbie asks.

John startles, wrapped up as he is in his own thoughts and the tension of waiting.

“We’re waiting for him to come out of that shop and get into one of those cars, and then we’re going to follow.”

“That tall bloke you’re with?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Is this some kind of spy thing?”

John laughs before he thinks about it, and then trails off, realising it might as well be a spy thing, with the gun at his back and the possibility of using it. “I’m not a spy,” John says, because that at least is true.

The tension, slightly dissipated in the course of the conversation, is instantly tight in John’s throat the moment he sees Sherlock step into the pool of light outside Company Co. “Start the car,” John orders. Sherlock is followed by a man, so much the ideal of tall, dark, and handsome that John realises it must be fake--the man is the companion bot. He looks unrealistically gorgeous in the same way Sherlock does, though Sherlock looks more like an unusually beautiful person than a calculated combination of perfect features.

Sherlock follows the bot to a small black road vehicle parked outside the building. John watches as the bot walks around the car to get in on the driver’s side and Sherlock opens the passenger door.

“It’s gonna be a bit hard to follow a road car from the air,” the taxi driver points out, as he switches the car on and lets it rise two feet into the air. 

“Just drive,” John says. “I’ll watch where they go, and give you directions.”

The passenger windows in aerotaxis are not built to open, due to the fear that passengers might open the windows and drop things on the people below, but aerotaxis are a favourite transportation method of tourists who want to be able to look down on the city. To this end, newer taxis are built with a viewing window in the floor of the back seat. As they lift higher above the street, John presses the button that pulls back the screen covering the window, and looks down. 

He feels an overpowering sense of vertigo, seeing the quickly shrinking people on the road below, and has to focus for a moment on the window itself, seeing not the view through the window but the grime of people’s feet on the glass. When he catches his breath, he focuses again and watches as the car he knows Sherlock must be in pulls out into traffic.

-

“Where would you like to go, Mr. Holmes?” the companion bot asks once Sherlock is seated in the car. 

“Oh, do I get a choice?” Sherlock asks.

“Of course. I am here to service you.” The bot’s voice is monotone--impossible to surprise it or upset it. 

“Is that what you think you’re here for?” Sherlock calculates the possibility that the bot doesn’t know its own purpose. Jefferson Hope obviously expects the bot to kill Sherlock, but there is always the chance that the bot is able to cause deaths without knowing that is its purpose. That could explain a failure of the First Law, although it would not explain why the bot did not attempt to aid its dying victims, or why it would have crushed Rachel Walton’s com, stopping her from calling for help. Still, there is a slight possibility that the bot intends to play out the farce of its role as a companion.

“My function is as a companion and provider of sexual services, including but not limited to sexual intercourse, oral stimulation, and manual stimulation. If you require such services, I must convey you to a private location. Sexual activity is forbidden in Company Co. vehicles.”

Is that what companion bots normally say to customers? Sherlock spares a moment to wonder whether humans actually find the “services” of a companion bot arousing. His understanding of human sexual desire is limited, though he knows some circles believe that if it exists, there is pornographic representation of it. He also knows that the business of sex bot rental is fairly lucrative.

Fine, a private location. It would hardly be possible to murder four people in public locations. “221B Baker Street,” Sherlock says.

“As you wish, Mr. Holmes,” the bot says. It types the address into the vehicle’s GPS system and guides the car out into traffic.

Sherlock has already calculated the possibility that the bot may disregard the requested destination and take him somewhere else, but it is soon clear where they are going. Sherlock notices and records the fact that had he not known otherwise, there would be nothing suspicious about this. The bot has made no move not appropriate to a normal companion bot, and it is taking Sherlock where he asked to be taken. It is possible the four victims had no idea that anything was wrong until it was too late to stop it. 

The bot stops the car outside 221B, and Sherlock gets out. He stands on the pavement for a moment, waiting for the bot, and looks up at the sky. The street lights illuminate the bottom of a taxi, hovering near the end of the street. 

Had he been human, Sherlock would have been reassured.

“Come on, Jim,” he says to the bot once it has emerged from the car. He leads the way inside 221B, waiting for more data--he still has no real idea how the four people died. “What’s next?” he asks, when they are standing in the entryway. 

“A more comfortable environment would be advisable,” the bot says, looking around it at the stairs and the lack of seating.

Ridiculous. Robots don’t experience comfort. “Fine,” Sherlock says, and points the bot to the stairs. He follows it up and into the living room, where it turns to him and touches the back of his hand. His sensors analyze the touch--body temperature too high to be mistaken for human, skin slightly too plastic.

“How may I service you?” the robot asks.

Sherlock considers the question. How far is he going to have to go with this before he has his answers? The idea of simulating sexual arousal for this companion bot is distasteful and tedious. “Surprise me,” Sherlock says. They are still standing in the middle of the living room, the windows wide and uncurtained, light from the street spilling in and turning the companion bot’s face an unpleasant orange. 

The bot reaches into the pocket of its trousers, and pulls out a bottle of pills.

Sherlock’s deductive subroutines immediately start analyzing the input. Plain glass bottle, unlabelled, one pill left. The pill: white, cylindrical, speckled. Could be any kind of pill, not recognisable as a common drug or poison. Jim lifts the bottle to the light, holding it towards Sherlock. “This is a special Company Co. formula,” it says. “Please allow me to improve your experience by taking this pill.”

_Oh._ _That_ is how a companion bot got four people to willingly take the poison that killed them. It told them the pill was... “What is it?”

“This pill will allow me to better anticipate your desires and your needs. It will enhance the chances of a successful sexual transaction.”

Rubbish. There’s nothing that could be dispensed in pill form that would give a robot a better idea of what kind of sex a human partner likes. Sherlock doesn’t know how four people fell for it, but obviously they did. It sounds, if not particularly effective, at least not harmful. Why shouldn’t they have taken it? 

In the seconds it takes the bot to unscrew the lid of the bottle and drop the pill into its palm, Sherlock calculates his possible courses of action. He reaches a conclusion.

Sherlock smiles at the knowledge of a case nearly solved, takes the pill, places it on his tongue, and swallows it.

-

John, sitting in the taxi hovering outside the windows of the living room at 221B, watches the bot reveal the pill bottle. He doesn’t know what it says, but he watches, hand involuntarily creeping to touch the outline of the gun at his back, underneath his jacket. He watches as the bot shakes the pill into its palm, and watches as Sherlock takes it between his fingers. He isn’t worried, knowing that the pill cannot have any adverse effects on Sherlock, that android systems are capable of processing and disposing of the material. He watches as Sherlock swallows the pill. 

He watches as Sherlock begins to shake. 

A powerful tremor takes over Sherlock’s body, his hands scrabbling towards his throat. The companion bot stands placid. John doesn’t remember, later, whether he screams Sherlock’s name, but he knows that hot, blinding uncertainty takes over his mind. Everything he’s been told, everything he knows about Sherlock, Sherlock’s impossible existence--in the horrible moment in which Sherlock’s body collapses at the companion bot’s feet, John doubts all of it. John wonders if he was wrong. If Sherlock lied, or is mad, or really is a psychopath. If Sherlock is not a droid after all.

John wonders if Sherlock is human.


	7. Chapter 7

John spends a long moment staring in the window, not seeing anything--not seeing as the robot bends over Sherlock’s body (invisible below the windowsill), not seeing as the robot turns and walks out of the room. It takes him a moment to act, and he still hasn’t processed, still has no idea what just happened. He doesn’t hear the cabbie asking, loudly, what the hell just happened; he barely hears himself shouting at the cabbie to land the car, and the taxi’s descent to the ground feels eternal. John is barely breathing, barely able to focus on anything. He leaps out of the taxi when it is still a foot and a half from the ground, followed by vague sounds of the cabbie shouting after him, and barrels through the front door, taking the stairs two at a time. 

The living room door is open, swinging slightly on its hinges. John half crashes into it, and catches himself on the door frame. 

Sherlock isn’t there. 

John knows exactly where Sherlock and the bot were standing, where Sherlock must have fallen, but Sherlock isn’t there. Sherlock isn’t anywhere in the living room. John hurries into the kitchen; Sherlock isn’t there either. John finds himself shouting Sherlock’s name, catches himself with his mouth still formed around the syllables, and stops. There is no answer.

Momentarily John stops, frozen, staring blankly at the spot on the floor where Sherlock _isn’t_. For the first time since he realised that something was wrong, that the pill was not as ineffective as Sherlock had promised, John _thinks_. He stops, staring, and thinks about his next step. Either the companion bot took Sherlock’s body--which can’t be the case; now that he’s thinking properly John remembers seeing the bot get into its car as he hurried past to reach Sherlock--or Sherlock is not quite as dead as he appeared. John hopes fervently for the latter, and realises that there is only one place he can go, one possibility to try. Either way, going back to Company Co. is the only step John can take. He takes a deep breath, adjusts the gun at his back, and runs back down the stairs.

-

“He took the pill?” Jefferson Hope says. His voice sounds surprised and suspicious. Underneath he sounds pleased. He doesn’t seem to doubt the companion droid, however. “He knew it was poison, why would he take the pill? You checked, of course?”

“Yes. He was dead.”

“‘Was’ being the operative word,” Sherlock says, stepping out from behind the slightly open back door. Will criminals never learn to lock anything properly?

Mr. Hope’s face corresponds exactly to Sherlock’s catalogued image of shock. The companion bot, of course, is impassive. Sherlock is pleased that the precaution of maintaining interior access to the roof aerobus stop has paid off, even if he normally prefers not to use it. Bus riders are so tedious. But he would never have been able to avoid being seen by the companion droid or by John if he’d had to go down to the street to catch a cab. 

They stand in the large back room of Company Co. A row of companion droids is lined up against one wall, all plugged in to charge. Every one of them is unnaturally beautiful, but they are all powered down and look lifeless, pale, and cold. Hope sits at a folding table in the middle of the room; the bot stands to his right. Pale light filters in the windows and the still open door that look out onto the alley behind the shop, marred by the iron bars on the windows.

“You were dead,” it says. “You did not breathe. You were unresponsive. You did not have a pulse.”

“I was warned about you,” Hope says. “They told me you were clever. Didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to take poison and clever enough to avoid dying once you’d taken it.”

“I was neither poisoned nor dead,” Sherlock says. “I am simply a flawless actor. I faked it.” 

Hope stares at him for a moment.

“Who warned you about me?” Sherlock asks.

“Just someone out there who’s noticed.”

Noticed? Noticed what? Mycroft took pains to keep Sherlock’s identity and operations secret, and Sherlock has continued to be careful--inefficient to be impounded if discovered to be an illegal robot. Mr. Hope doesn’t seem to be aware that Sherlock is an android, but that is no guarantee that this “someone” does not know that.

“You swallowed poison,” Hope says. “You should be dead.”

“You thought I fell for that trick? I knew it was poison. If I’d thought poison would kill me, I wouldn’t have swallowed that pill. Now. Who would notice me?”

Hope smiles--Sherlock’s catalogues process the expression, and rule out almost all possible meanings for smiles. Not happiness, not anything normal--an evil smile, though evil is a particularly subjective concept. “Have a seat, Mr. Holmes,” Hope says. Sherlock looks at the chair across the table from Hope, considering, then sits down.

“Who?” Sherlock asks again.

“You’ve got yourself a fan, Mr. Holmes.” 

Fan, noun: an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer. No one who has spent enough time in Sherlock’s company to know either way qualifies as enthusiastic or admiring. The most accurate way to describe the feelings of people with whom he is required to associate: they put up with him. 

Except John, perhaps.

The only facets of Sherlock’s existence worthy of having fans are his programming, his design, his work. Nobody who is far enough away from him not to be put off by his behavior knows enough about those things to be a fan. 

“Tell me more,” Sherlock says. More information, more input. 

“That’s all you need to know about your fan.”

“Fine. Tell me about Jim. Tell me how you reprogrammed it.”

Hope gets out of his chair and steps around behind the companion bot. Sherlock watches as Hope pushes up Jim’s shirt and opens a panel in his back. The beep of buttons pressed seems loud in the small room. After a long sequence of buttons, Jim’s eyes close and he goes very still. Mr. Hope closes the panel again, and Jim turns automatically and walks over to the one empty space on the wall of bots. Hope plugs him in, and returns to the table to sit down again.

“Wiping his memory,” Hope explains. “Standard policy between customers.”

“And a very effective alibi.”

“That too.” Hope spreads his hands out on the table and smiles at Sherlock. “I could tell you how I reprogrammed Jim, but that’s not what you’re really interested in, is it?”

No, it isn’t. Sherlock, if he had to, could figure out how to strip the Three Laws out of a robot’s programming. He understands robots. He does not understand human desires and motivations.

“I hear you’re very good at telling people about themselves,” Hope says. “So why don’t you tell me why I let a robot murder four people?”

Sherlock’s visual sensors scan Mr. Hope’s body, looking for evidence. “There’s shaving foam on your neck, behind your left ear. Nobody’s told you. Therefore, you live alone. But if you were used to living alone, you would have remembered to check in the mirror after you shaved. So, you recently changed your living situation. Unlikely at your age that you were living with a flatmate, more likely you were living with someone with whom you were in a sexual relationship. You’ve never worn a wedding ring, so not a marriage. You recently ended a romantic and sexual liaison. Was it traumatic? Did it make you angry? Angry enough to kill?”

Mr. Hope’s facial expression: cold, bitter. “I didn’t end it. She did.” He sounds hoarse, but not surprised that Sherlock was able to deduce all that information. “I told her stories about working here. I told her about the people who came in to rent bots. I told her about the bots. They’re not what people think, you know--they’re not all just the same. They have personalities, quirks. I got to like some of them.” He turns and looks over his shoulder at the droids lined up against the wall, and when he turns back his face is twisted into an unreadable expression. “So I came home and I told her about them, and after a while she got curious. She wanted to rent a bot, see what it was like. I’m not a jealous man, I didn’t mind if she wanted to spend a bit of time with a robot. But she liked it. She wanted to do it again.”

“Robot a more talented lover than you, is that it?” Sherlock asks. 

“No, that wasn’t it. She didn’t always have sex with the bot. I could tell when she did. No, she just liked its company. Said it was...easy. Easier than being with me. I’m not an easy man to live with, I know. But we were in love, once. And eventually she was spending more time with the bot than she was with me. Eventually, she left me for the bot.”

“She preferred robotic companionship to yours? Knowing that you loved her, and that the robot was simply performing its function?”

“Yes.”

“That must cost a great deal of money.”

Mr. Hope laughs. “I hope so. I was letting her take out the bots for free, but after she left I told her to stop coming here. She switched to a different agency, must be paying through the nose.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I used to like the bots. Hate ‘em now, of course. They’re fake. They don’t have personalities, they have minor flaws in the programming. I always knew that, but now I’ve stopped pretending it was something real. And I can’t see how anyone else can believe they have something real with a robot.”

“You killed four people because they believed robotic companionship was ‘something real.’”

“Not very good business practise for someone renting out sex bots, is it? Killing the customers.” He laughs again, though Sherlock’s measurement of the humour in the situation is very low. He sits back in his chair, looking steadily at Sherlock. “That last one, the one that called herself Rachel? Lady in the pink dress. I hated her the most. She was a regular. It wasn’t till the last time that I noticed she usually wore a wedding ring. I’m observant like that, sometimes. Then I knew she was cheating on her spouse with a robot. Worst thing you can do, trading your real, human family for something made of metal and programming.”

“You’re not a trained robotics technician,” Sherlock says.

“What? Oh, no. Just picked up what I needed to know to keep this lot running, pressing buttons and oiling joints, that sort of thing. I get a tech in for serious maintenance.”

“So how did you know how to strip the First Law out of Jim’s programming?”

“I had a bit of help.”

“It was your own personal vendetta. What did they get out of it? Who would help you do that?”

“Who’d be a fan of Sherlock Holmes?”

Sherlock’s analysis subroutines immediately begin collating the data and analyzing it. A fan of Sherlock--someone with reason to have noticed him, so someone in a law enforcement profession, someone in Mycroft’s employ, a former client, or a criminal. If this fan helped Jefferson Hope turn a robot into a killing machine, the last option is the most likely.

“I’ll leave you to think on that one,” Mr. Hope says, standing up. He moves back to Jim and pulls a small gun out of the robot’s trouser pocket. An old fashioned pistol, with metal bullets. Those seem to be popular with criminals these days. Nostalgia?

Not that Sherlock missed the gun’s presence, of course. Only its exact specifications remained unknown. With the prospect of a gun, taking the poison and making its effects look real had been the only possibility. Unlike Sherlock to have miscalculated the probability that Hope would use it. Perhaps John really will need to do some maintenance.

Mr. Hope points the gun at Sherlock’s chest. A poor choice if Sherlock were human (too much chance of missing important organs, fatality uncertain), but dangerous to Sherlock the robot. The ignorance is appalling, the sheer luck strange. It’s enough to make Sherlock evaluate the possibility that Hope does know he’s a robot, after all. Not enough to make him believe that. Sherlock’s power source, his processing units, crucial hardware controls, all are located in his chest. The head would have been comparatively less damaging, though it would have been a bother to repair the delicate cosmetic work of Sherlock’s face. The only thing in his head is his memory, his catalogues. That too would be a bother to replace, but most of it is backed up; it would not be as devastating as a bullet in Sherlock’s main system. Sherlock is not invulnerable. He could be repaired, but such extensive and essential repairs would change him. He might work the same, but he would no longer be himself.

Sherlock is not afraid. Robots do not have emotions.

“I don’t know why you want to do that,” Sherlock says. “I have no desire to have a sexual or emotional relationship with a robot.”

“Could you do it?” Hope asks. “Could you work out how to make a robot kill?”

“Of course I could.”

“We don’t need more than one of you, though, do we? Most people think it’s impossible. Better not let people who can do it keep on running around.”

“You’re going to kill me in the public interest?”

“Tell me there aren’t reasons why I should.”

Sherlock is the most powerful robot in the world. He passes for human. If his system were ever to be corrupted...

Jefferson Hope unlocks the gun’s safety. “I thought so.”

No gunshot ever rings out. The only sound Sherlock’s auditory sensors pick up is a quiet hum. His olfactory sensors pick up a smell of burning flesh, and the visual: Jefferson Hope falls to the ground, clutching his neck.

Sherlock stands, knocking over his chair, and looks first to the row of companion bots. All are still and motionless. He turns to the window. A small round patch of warped, melted-looking glass has appeared in the window, centred between the iron bars. No one is outside, no one is standing in the dark alley. Unnecessary direction of inquiry at present. Sherlock whirls around and leans over Jefferson Hope. 

“Who is my fan? I want a name.”

“No.” 

-

“I’ve got a screw loose,” Sherlock says. “Must have knocked it when I fell.”

John turns, shifting his gaze from the front of the shop, where two paramedics are manoeuvring a stretcher out the front door. The blanket over the body obscures the face, but everyone knows it is Jefferson Hope. John looks at Sherlock, realises what he’s just said, and laughs. “You do at that,” he says, and subsides into giggles. “Shouldn’t giggle, it’s a crime scene.” He watches Sherlock’s blank face, and the subtle way it changes when he finds the euphemism in his dictionary. “When you fell, I thought--” John cuts himself off, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“All part of the plan,” Sherlock says.

“Yes, I know that now. But you did scare me.”

Sherlock peers at John, seemingly searching for something. “Good shot,” he says.

John shifts uncomfortably, unsure of himself. “Must have been.”

“Don’t be coy, John, it’s a waste of time. I would like to see the weapon at some point, however. The remote robot disabling device. You modified it, of course.”

“I did.”

In the slight fading of adrenaline, John is beginning to think about what he’s just done, and to realise that it’s... not okay. He should be more bothered by it than he is. “I just killed a man to save a robot,” he murmurs. “That’s...a bit not good.” He’s a robotics technician, but he’s not--he works with robots because he’s good at it, because he likes the process and finds the result interesting. He doesn’t _value_ robots. Not over human life. A human life is not worth exchanging for a remarkable piece of technology. 

“He was a jealous and slightly incompetent serial killer,” Sherlock points out. 

John laughs, briefly. “No, he wasn’t a very nice man, was he?” That doesn’t make it okay, but it makes it... better. A human life is not worth exchanging for technology, but a serial killer’s life might just be worth Sherlock. In the moment, John had certainly thought so. His instincts had told him to save Sherlock.

Maybe it’s worrying that he keeps finding it so hard to think of Sherlock as a robot. Maybe that’s why it is illegal to build a robot that is not obviously marked as such. A robot that looks like a human is treated like a human, valued as such, expected to keep to human rules. Even when John’s brain knows that Sherlock will never feel like a human feels or act with the consideration of others’ feelings in mind, it is hard to believe that. If he does believe that, he will always be disappointed.

Sherlock is smiling. It isn’t helping. “What do you look so happy about?” John asks.

“Moriarty.”

“What’s Moriarty?”

“Insufficient data,” Sherlock says. He pauses, and his smile quirks wider. “I notice you’re not using your cane.”

John looks down, splays his hand out and looks at it, its emptiness. He is standing on his own two feet, and he can’t remember where he left the cane. In the cab? Probably. His leg doesn’t hurt, and he knows he’s been running--up stairs, down stairs, down the street. “Oh,” he mutters. 

“Hypothesis confirmed,” Sherlock says, sounding almost smug.

“You had me running after you just so I’d lose the cane?”

“That wasn’t the only purpose. You did prove useful.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He giggles again. “Shall we go and fix your loose screw?”

“I don’t know why you persist in treating that as a euphemism for insanity. It isn’t actually humourous.”

“Yes it is. You are a bit mad, after all.”

“You can’t apply psychology to me, I haven’t got a psyche.”

They move away from the crime scene, bickering comfortably. John glances down at his leg, and marvels at the turn his life has taken. Bickering with a robot--that is unexpected. 

Unexpected, but... good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been thirteen months in the making, and it has involved a _ridiculous_ amount of time and effort. It began with this conversation:
> 
> Ishmael: I'm hoping what I've got works for optimal emotional progression  
> Since all it really is is ~FEELINGS~  
> Tartan: yay feelings!  
> "optimal emotional progression" sounds like something a robot would be trying for in attempting to pass as human  
> Ishmael: OH SNAP YOU KNOW MY SECRET  
> /me beep boop  
> Tartan: hahahaha  
> Ishmael: I can see Sherlock saying that phrase. Or something similar  
> me: one might write a robot and Sherlock similarly
> 
> This conversation lead to this kinkmeme prompt:
> 
> "Sherlock is a robot. He is sentient but pure programming. He's not supposed to have emotions at all.  
> Then John enters the picture. Sherlock finds aberrations in his routines, things he cannot explain.  
> Bonus points for Mycroft trying to revert Sherlock back to his old, emotionless state."
> 
> When I started I was familiar with a grand total of zero shows/movies/books that involve robots. And then I accidentally'd novel-length robot fic of epic proportions. Facepalm forever. So this saga requires a lot of blame and a lot of thanks.
> 
> Thanks go to [](http://miss_sabre.livejournal.com/profile)[**miss_sabre**](http://miss_sabre.livejournal.com/) for beta and initial plot help, [](http://rhuia.livejournal.com/profile)[**rhuia**](http://rhuia.livejournal.com/) for britpicking, and [](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/profile)[**call-me-ishmael**](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/)’s flatmate for knowing a lot of useful things I didn’t know like how robots work. Thanks to numerous people in multiple IRC channels, many of whom have probably forgotten they made any contribution to this fic. I feel like I’m writing my Oscars speech. Thanks to everyone who read this on the meme and left lovely comments, terribly sorry I left you all hanging.
> 
> Eternal thanks, and all the blame, go to [](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/profile)[**call-me-ishmael**](http://call-me-ishmael.livejournal.com/). From idle conversation to kinkmeme prompt, kinkmeme fill, bigbang, terrible robot innuendo, editing forever, worldbuilding, comma wrangling, ninja art-making... this fic would never have been imagined without Ish, and it would never have been completed, and I am not remotely exaggerating. He has earned the titles of Co-Brainer and Official Enabler many times over, and has put a ridiculous amount of time into this fic for someone who didn’t actually write any of it. THANK YOU. Also I hope you know that when I say “blame” I say it fondly. This has been enormous fun.
> 
> You'll notice I didn't actually fulfill the prompt. I had to write 29k of establishing background before I could write the feels, apparently. The prompt will actually get filled in the sequel to this fic, hopefully coming soon. :D
> 
> Also I made a [YouTube playlist](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL238617E990FB9337) for this fic, because why not.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for This Machine Called Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/524792) by [moonblossom graphics (moonblossom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonblossom/pseuds/moonblossom%20graphics)




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